Publishers Weekly
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Novelist Hwang (Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop) illuminates her ardent relationship with literature with this affable memoir in essays. In each entry, Hwang offers readers advice for interacting with books while reflecting on her own history with reading and writing. Subjects range from the lighthearted, as when Hwang advises on how to fit snippets of reading time into a busy day, to the profound, as in the essay “Read Books That Preserve Your Sense of Self,” in which she considers how to use literature to protect one’s individuality in a consumerist age. “The moment we welcome books into ourselves, we’re bravely opening the door to our hearts,” Hwang writes, making an earnest and convincing argument that the best antidote to cynicism is time spent inside someone else’s mind. She illustrates her point in the book’s penultimate chapter, in which she describes the vast array of books her family and friends are reading, highlighting how each one is quietly expanding their perspectives. Dedicated bibliophiles and casual readers alike will adore this. (Dec.)

Book list
From Booklist, Copyright © American Library Association. Used with permission.

Hwang's (Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop, 2024) cozy ode to reading was originally published in 2021, and now translator Tan brings a version to English speakers. In the author’s note, Hwang explains how she came to writing after years of loving books and how awed she is now that her work is now among them. Each of the 53 chapters details a way for readers to deepen their relationship with reading: reading all types of fiction, choosing significant quotes to remember, using the library, and much more. Some of the topics give readers permission to change their reading behavior based on their moods, such as “You Don’t Always Have to Finish It” and “Favorite Author.” Others provide resources to help new or reluctant readers add more time with books into their days, such as using a timer and remembering to bring a book everywhere. Hwang notes that the original book came with a weekly planner, and readers can easily choose one chapter a week to focus on. Suggest to fans of Shannon Reed’s Why We Read (2024).

Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Good reads, good medicine. “I still can’t believe I wrote and published an essay collection spurred solely by my love for reading.” Readers of this book might feel the same way. Filled with breathless pleasure, this clutch of essays by Korean author Hwang (Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop, 2022) hovers between the trite and the profound. Big books take time. Reading at night prompts thoughts and dreams. Always take a book on vacation. Some books are not worth finishing (Umberto Eco’sThe Name of the Rose stands out here). Then, there are books that offer something new each time we open them. Thoreau’sWalden prompts the reader to think seriously about life choices. How can you “truly live a life [you] wanted”? But all the reader gets is: “I respect Thoreau for looking beyond the superficial things in life in search for his ideal way of living, and so I eagerly recommended his books to my friends.” Anyone who reads for pleasure or instruction will agree with the author: “The joy of reading extends beyond the last page of the book.” Or: “The biggest charm of book clubs is how they encourage a difference in opinions.” Aristotle, Hannah Arendt, and Goethe jostle throughout, their powerful quotations often reduced to banalities. The most absorbing sections of the book are the author’s reflections on reading in Korea and on the ways in which contemporary Korean writers seek to balance self-examined life with professional striving. There is a larger point about the sociology of reading—about the ways in which books, bookstores, book clubs, and television interviews contribute to a literate, reflective life. But much of this remains implicit. “Books are friends we make along life’s journey.” Would that this book had been a more compelling companion. A pleasant, if superficial, set of exhortations to read books to get more out of life. Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.