Welcome To The Hyunam-Dong Bookshop by Hwang Bo-Reum

About the book: Welcome To The Hyunam-Dong Bookshop (2023) is the runaway Korean sensation, a heart-warming story about finding comfort and acceptance in your life and the healing power of books.

Yeongju did everything she was supposed to, go to university, marry a decent man, get a respectable job. Then it all fell apart. Burned out, Yeongju abandons her old life, quits her high-flying career, and follows her dream. She opens a bookshop.

In a quaint neighbourhood in Seoul, surrounded by books, Yeongju and her customers take refuge. From the lonely barista to the unhappily married coffee roaster, and the writer who sees something special in Yeongju - they all have disappointments in their past. The Hyunam-dong Bookshop becomes the place where they all learn how to truly live.

Welcome To The Hyunam-Dong Bookshop is Waterstones' Best Fiction Books 2023 Pick; Woman & Home November Book of the Month; and iPaper Top Fiction Pick. 

Welcome To The Hyunam-Dong Bookshop is translated from the Korean (어서 오세요, 휴남동 서점입니다) by Shanna Tan.

About the author: Hwang Bo-reum studied Computer Science and worked as a software engineer. She wrote several essay collections: I Read Every Day, I Tried Kickboxing for the First Time and This Distance is Perfect. Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop is her first novel, which has sold over 150,000 copies in Korea and been sold into 9 territories. Before its release as a paperback, the novel was initially published as an e-book after winning an open contest co-organised by Korean content-publishing platform ‘Brunch’. 

About the translator: Shanna Tan is a Singaporean translator working from Korean, Chinese and Japanese into English. She was selected for two emerging literary translator mentorships in 2022, where she was mentored by Anton Hur and Julia Sanches. Her prose translations have appeared in The Southern Review, The Common, Azalea: Journal of Korean Literature & Culture and more.

Rating: 5/5

Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan

About the book: Claire Keegan’s tender tale of hope and quiet heroism is both a celebration of compassion and a stern rebuke of the sins committed in the name of religion.

It is 1985, in an Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal and timber merchant, faces his busiest season. As he does the rounds, he feels the past rising up to meet him - and encounters the complicit silences of a small community controlled by the Church.

Small Things Like These (2021) was longlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize, announced on July 26, 2022. The story is dedicated to the women and children who suffered time in Ireland's mother and baby homes and Magdalen laundries. 

Small Things Like These is an upcoming historical drama film directed by Tim Mielants and written by Enda Walsh based on the 2021 novel of the same name by Claire Keegan, starring Cillian Murphy, who also serves as a producer, Ciaran Hinds and Emily Watson.

About the author: Claire Keegan, novelist and short story writer, was brought up on a farm in Ireland. At the age of 17, she travelled to New Orleans, where she studied English and Political Science at Loyola University. She returned to Ireland in 1992, and her highly acclaimed first volume of short stories - Antarctica - was published in 1999.

Her stories are translated into 30 languages and have won numerous accolades. Antarctica won the Rooney Prize for Irish Literature. Walk the Blue Fields won the Edge Hill Prize, awarded to the finest collection of stories published in the British Isles. Foster won the Davy Byrnes Award and was last year chosen by The Times as one of the top 50 works of fiction to be published in the 21st century. Small Things Like These was shortlisted for the 2022 Rathbones Folio Prize. It won the Kerry Group Irish Novel of the Year Award and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction and was shortlisted for the Booker Prize 2022. Her works have been translated into 30 languages.

Rating: 5/5

The City Of The Living by Nicola Lagioia

About the book: Let's not attribute Rome's problems to overpopulation. When there were only two Romans, one killed the other. - Giulio Andreotti

The City of the Living (2023) is the spellbinding true account of one of the most vicious crimes in recent Italian history.

In March 2016, in a nondescript apartment on the outskirts of Rome, Manuel Foffo and Marco Prato, two “ordinary” young men from good families, brutally murdered twenty-three year old Luca Varani. News of the seemingly inexplicable crime sent shockwaves through Rome and beyond. 

What motivated such extreme violence? 

Were the killers evil or in the grip of societal evils? 

Did they know what they were doing? 

Or were they possessed? 

And if the latter, possessed by what?

Based on months of interviews, court documentation, and correspondence with the killers themselves, The City of the Living (2023) is not only a fast-paced, revelatory thriller in the style of Lisa Taddeo’s Animal, it is also a descent into the dark heart of Rome - a city that is unlivable and yet teeming with life, overrun by rats and wild animals, and plagued by corruption, drugs, and violence. Yet, the Eternal City is also a place that, more than any other in the world, seems to inspire a sense of absolute freedom in its inhabitants.

Proceeding in concentric circles, Nicola Lagioia leads us through a maze of betrayed expectations, sexual confusion, inability to grow up, economic grievances, crises of identity - progressively tightening the focus of the analysis to locate the breaking point after which anything is possible. 

As hypnotic as Erik Larson’s Devil in the White City, an heir to Truman Capote’s In Cold Blood, and destined to cast on spell on fans of the Morbid podcast, The City of the Living is Nicola Lagioia’s most gripping, bestselling, and critically acclaimed novel to-date. Razor-sharp, unputdownable, devastating, it is the story not only of a crime but of human nature itself; of the tension between responsibility and guilt, between the drive to oppress and the desire to be free; of who we are and who we can become.

The City of the Living is translated from the Italian - original title: La città dei vivi (2020) - by Ann Goldstein.

About the author: One of Italy’s most critically acclaimed contemporary novelists, Nicola Lagioia has been the recipient of the Volponi, Straniero, and Viareggio awards, in addition to the Strega. In 2010, he was named one of Italy’s best writers under forty. He has been a jury member of the Venice Film Festival and is the program director of the Turin Book Fair. Lagioia is a contributor to Italy’s most prominent culture pages. He was born in Bari, and lives in Rome. Ferocity (2017) is his English-language debut.

About the translator: Ann Goldstein has translated into English all of Elena Ferrante's books, including the New York Times bestsellers The Lying Life of Adults and The Story of the Lost Child, which was also shortlisted for the International Booker Prize. She has been honoured with a Guggenheim Fellowship and is the recipient of the PEN Renato Poggioli Translation Award. She lives in New York.

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Saint John Of The Cross (1542-1591), Spanish Catholic Priest, Mystic and Carmelite Friar

The Highest Form Of Thought

The Door-To-Door Bookstore by Carsten Henn

About the book: "I'm so glad there are books in the world," she said. "I hope that's one thing that never changes! So many things do, and it happens so fast. Everyone pays with plastic money now. People give me such odd looks whenever I count out the right change at the till!"

"The written word will always remain, Ms Schäfer; sometimes there is simply no better form of expression. Print is the best preserving agent for thoughts and stories; it keeps them fresh for centuries."

There is a book written for every one of us.

Carl may be 72 years old, but he is young at heart. Every night, he goes door-to-door delivering books by hand to his loyal customers. He knows their every desire and preference, carefully selecting the perfect story for each person.

One evening as he makes his rounds, nine-year-old Schascha appears. Loud and precocious, she insists on accompanying him - and even tries to teach him a thing or two about books.

When Carl's job at the bookstore is threatened, will the old man and the girl in the yellow raincoat be able to restore Carl's way of life, and return the joy of reading to his little European town?

The Door-to-Door Bookstore (2023) is a heart-warming tale of the value of friendship, the magic of reading, and the power of books to unite us all. The Door-to-Door Bookstore is originally published in German as Der Buchspazierer in 2020. The Door-to-Door Bookstore is translated from the German by Melody Shaw.

The international bestseller is dedicated to booksellers everywhere: in times of crisis, they provide us with food for the soul.

About the author: Carsten Henn has worked as a radio presenter, wine and restaurant critic, and has published a number of successful novels. He lives in Germany.

Rating: 5/5

The Antidote To His Poisons

Fuzzy Socks

Happy Thanksgiving 2023

Morning & Evening Prayer: Meditations & Catechesis on the Psalms & Canticles by Pope St John Paul II & Pope Benedict XVI

About the book: Two beloved Popes from recent times, John Paul II and Benedict XVI, offer original and illuminating reflections on the psalms and canticles of the Liturgy of the Hours leading the reader to deeper meditation and understanding.

The catecheses and meditations on the psalms and canticles of the Liturgy of Lauds and Vespers published in this volume were given by both Pope St John Paul II on 28 March 2001 and continued until his death in 2005, then continued by Pope Benedict XVI until their completion on 15 February 2006. The audiences were given in Italian and the texts used are the official translation released by the Holy See.

The texts of the Psalms and Canticles reproduced in this publication are those in use in the Divine Office, a translation of the Liturgia Horarium approved by the Episcopal Conferences of Australia, England and Wales, Ireland and Scotland, published by Wm Collins Sons & Co Ltd. The Psalms and Canticles of the four week cycle of Morning and Evening Prayer are also reproduced here for convenience.

Morning & Evening Prayer: Meditations & Catechesis on the Psalms & Canticles (2015) is devoted to promoting the Liturgy of the Hours as a prayer of the whole people of God. 

The Definitive Guide To The Perimenopause & Menopause by Dr Louise Newson

About the book: The Definitive Guide to the Perimenopause & Menopause (2023) is your complete, evidence-based guide to the perimenopause and menopause, written by one of the UK's leading menopause specialists.

Under the steady guidance of Dr Louise Newson, you will discover the impact of low hormone levels on symptoms and future health, the disparities in menopause care, how to access optimal treatment and much more. This book includes a practical guide to HRT, how to look after your mental and physical health, plus a comprehensive section on how to optimise your lifestyle.

Full of exclusive new research, plus contributions from other leading experts in the fields of mental health, dermatology, nutrition and psychology, this book not only gives you the facts at your fingertips, but will also empower you to ask the right questions and seek the best solutions as you navigate this vital stage of life.

About the author: Dr Louise Newson is a GP and pioneering menopause specialist, founder of the Newson Health Menopause and Wellbeing Centre and the Newson Health Menopause Society. She is a No 1 Sunday Times bestselling author, founder of the award-winning balance menopause app, and creator of the balance-menopause website and the Dr Louise Newson podcast.

The Bettencourt Affair: The World's Richest Woman And The Scandal That Rocked Paris by Tom Sancton

About the book: Heiress to the nearly forty-billion-dollar L’Oréal fortune, Liliane Bettencourt was the world’s richest woman and the fourteenth wealthiest person. But her gilded life took a dark yet fascinating turn in the past decade. At ninety-four, she was embroiled in what has been called the Bettencourt Affair, a scandal that dominated the headlines in France. 

Why? 

It is a tangled web of hidden secrets, divided loyalties, frayed relationships, and fractured families, set in the most romantic city - and involving the most glamorous industry - in the world.

The Bettencourt Affair started as a family drama but quickly became a massive scandal, uncovering L’Oréal’s shadowy corporate history and buried World War II secrets. From the Right Bank mansions to the Left Bank artist havens; and from the Bettencourts’ servant quarters to the office of President Nicolas Sarkozy; all of Paris was shaken by the blockbuster case, the shocking reversals, and the surprising final victim.

It all began when Liliane met François-Marie Banier, an artist and photographer who was, in his youth, the toast of Paris and a protégé of Salvador Dalí. Over the next two decades, Banier was given hundreds of millions of dollars in gifts, cash, and insurance policies by Liliane. 

What, exactly, was their relationship? 

It was not clear, least of all to Liliane’s daughter and only child, Françoise, who became suspicious of Banier’s motives and filed a lawsuit against him. But Banier has a far different story to tell.

The Bettencourt Affair is part courtroom drama; part upstairs-downstairs tale; and part character-driven story of a complex, fascinating family and the intruder who nearly tore it apart. The Bettencourt Affair was National Public Radio's Best Book of 2017.

About the author: Tom Sancton, author of The Bettencourt Affair and five other nonfiction books, was a longtime Paris bureau chief for Time magazine, where he wrote more than fifty cover stories. He first broke the Bettencourt Affair for many American readers with his feature piece in Vanity Fair in 2010. A Rhodes scholar who studied at Harvard and Oxford, he splits his time between Paris and New Orleans, where he is currently a research professor at Tulane University. In 2014, the French government named Tom Sancton a Chevalier (Knight) in the Order of Arts and Letters.