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Up next for book club. #FirstSaturdayReaders #BooksWithBeth

It definitely feels like winter here today. A bleak, aching story of gazes upon women, men, cultures. Of a young woman finding her place among relationships, family and her desires and dreams. Maybe not the best time of year for me to have read this one, but a beautiful book.

She studied at the university in Seoul but now lives in Sokcho, a desolate fisherman‘s village near the North Korean border. She works in a small guesthouse where one of the guests is a French man, apparently as lonely as she is.
It‘s not a cheerful read but it‘s wonderful, this little book about not daring to choose life and its risks over the safety of solitude.

#pop22 #ABookWithARecipeInIt

#WeeklyForecast 20/22

Still enjoying and cherishing The Island of Missing Trees. Then I‘ll read the short but very intriguing Winter in Sokcho, followed by this month‘s #NYRBBookClub choice.
After that, I guess it will all be about Camp!

I keep edging up the ⭐️ rating of this excellent Korean novel. Very claustrophobic and stark, perfect for the end of winter. It‘s a book that makes you ache.

The resort town of Sokcho is dead in winter, but our MC helps care for a resort. A French graphic novelist comes to stay bringing up feelings about our MC‘s absent French father and his affair with her Korean mother. Meanwhile there‘s a boyfriend pressuring her to move back to Seoul. ⬇️

I‘ve been reading lots of different books at one time because I can‘t seem to choose what I want to read. I loved convenient store woman but I‘ve heard earthlings is quite different. I guess I have lots of choice 😊

Through spare evocative prose, we are immersed in the life of a Korean outsider: she never knew her French father; people in her hometown near the North Korean border treat her with contempt; her job in a shabby guesthouse sucks; her fishmonger mother suffocates her with conflicting admonishments about her size (too skinny! too fat!)… then a stranger comes to town. I was enchanted by this atmospheric & enigmatic tale. Translation by A A Higgins.

I didn‘t want to be his eyes on my world. I wanted to be seen.

“Fables aren‘t happy stories,” I said.
“They can be.”
“All the ones from Korea are sad. You should read them.”

Our beaches are still waiting for the end of a war that‘s been going on for so long people have stopped believing it‘s real. They build hotels, put up neon signs, but it‘s all fake, we‘re on a knife edge, it could all give way any moment. We‘re living in limbo. In a winter that never ends.

Not for people who hate vague endings! Short book with lots of social dynamics.

Do you ever read a book that you think is just meh, or okay, but then you can't stop thinking about it? I am TOTALLY feeling that way about this book. I read it a few weeks ago and didn't think it was very special - many of the characters were not likable and I wasn't crazy about the ending - but I still just can't stop thinking about it! I can't get this little seaside Korean town out of my mind! I guess it made an impression on me after all!

A young french-korean woman is working as a receptionist in an old hotel in Sokcho, a border town between North and South Korea. She forms a strange kind of relationship with a French guest, a comic book artist. Kind of strange, but interesting enough and read it in a day...

Winter in Sokcho gives a glimpse into life at a town in South Korea near the border with the north by following a young French-Korean woman working at a guest house as she interacts with a French guest. In some ways it feels like there‘s very little to this story, but ultimately I think it has great depth. It‘s a quick, interesting read.

2021 NBA winner, translated literature

Molly is the only one who got me books for Christmas! 😉 She‘s such a thoughtful dog! 😂

The tagged was the national book award winner for literature in translation, and I‘m excited to give it a shot.

Voices is on @vivastory ‘s #NYWD22 list, and I‘m hoping to get to it in January.

Does anyone else‘s pet give them presents or are we just a weird family? 🤔

This is a gem of a novella about a young French-Korean woman, recently graduated from college, trapped as a housekeeper in a resort town in winter where nothing happens, when a French artist comes to town looking for inspiration. Which makes it sound like a romance and it isn't exactly, tho it is about romance and about seeing and being seen and that awkward transition from Promising Youth to Productive Adulthood and family and I recommend it.

I saw this book on the longlist for the (USA) National Book Award for translated literature. It is translated from the French by an author who was raised in various countries, including France and South Korea.↘️

Couldn‘t resist the cover & synopsis on this one! Unfortunately it‘s riddled with formatting errors which takes away from my enjoyment. This is a quick (90 min plane ride) read that captures that dissatisfied loneliness where you find yourself putting your hopes for a different life on a transient stranger. There‘s a sad beauty to it. I could‘ve used more atmosphere, or more in general. I thought the ending lacked the punch the synopsis suggested.

Well I devoured this one. Slim little novella. Sharp and slippery. You start thinking it‘s one thing and then it turns into another thing altogether in all the best ways. Couldn‘t stop reading!!

I think I saw this on @Mitch ‘s timeline/story/what do we call it here? and promptly ordered it from England. Now it‘s about to be released here in the US and I thought I‘d read it before that happens so I don‘t feel silly for not having waited. #readingasia2021

This is a slight, quiet book, where nothing actually happens beyond seafood being eaten. I liked it. Our mc is working the off-season in a small guest-house, in the tourist town of Sokcho. A French cartoonist checks in, & something starts (not a friendship, not a relationship...)

I loved the sense of place- maybe I‘ve always thought of South Korea as Seoul (in the way people think England is London). This is Whitby or Falmouth & felt so familiar.

Next up.

Because I do love a faded seaside town in winter, but it hadn‘t really occurred to me that South Korea did such things (which is utterly ridiculous, given how much coastline they have.)

Also, cover 😍

He'd never understand what Sokcho was like.... The smells, the octopus. The isolation.

Our library is still open...

I admit - I‘m susceptible to a good bookstore window. Bought the book!