Staff Picks

This is a love letter to books and the power they have over us.

 

Publisher's description:

Yeongju is burned out. She did everything she was supposed to: go to school, marry a decent man, get a respectable job. Then it all fell apart. In a leap of faith, Yeongju abandons her old life, quits her high-flying career, and follows her dream. She opens a bookshop. In a quaint neighborhood 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.

 

A book recommendation to cure everything from "Sleepwalking" to "High Blood Pressure" to "Killjoy, Being A." A fun book to open at random or read straight through, it will have you laughing as well as taking notes for your next trip to the library.

 

Publisher Description:

A novel is a story transmitted from the novelist to the reader. It offers distraction, entertainment, and an opportunity to unwind or focus. But it can also be something more powerful--a way to learn about how to live. Read at the right moment in your life, a novel can--quite literally--change it. The Novel Cure is a reminder of that power. To create this apothecary, the authors have trawled two thousand years of literature for novels that effectively promote happiness, health, and sanity, written by brilliant minds who knew what it meant to be human and wrote their life lessons into their fiction. Structured like a reference book, readers simply look up their ailment, be it agoraphobia, boredom, or a midlife crisis, and are given a novel to read as the antidote.