Book: Crime and Punishment

“Your worst sin is that you have destroyed and betrayed yourself for nothing.”

― Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment

Book: Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop

“<..> Reading makes you see with clearer eyes and understand the world better. When you do that , you become stronger - the feeling you associate with success. But at the same time with pain. Within the pages, there’s much suffering, beyond that we’ve gone through in our finite experience of life. You’ll read about suffering you didn’t know existed. Having experienced their pain through words, it becomes a lot harder to focus on pursuing individual happiness and success. Reading makes you deviate further from the textbook definition of success because books don’t make us go ahead of or above anyone else; they guide us to stand alongside others. <…>

<..> We become more compassionate. To read is to see things from someone else’s perspective, and that naturally leads you to stop and look out for other people, rather than chase after success in the rat race. If more people read, I think the world would become a better place.”

― Hwang Bo-reum, Welcome to the Hyunam-Dong Bookshop

Book: DallerGut Dream Department Store by Lee My-Ye

“Whether you have a good dream you bought from this department store or do not dream at all, all of us sleep in one way or another to get closure from yesterday and prepare for tomorrow. In that sense, sleep is no longer a waste of time.”

― Lee Mi-Ye, DallerGut Dream Department Store

Michiko Aoyama: What You Are Looking For Is in the Library

Satoshi Yagisawa: Days at the Morisaki Bookshop

Carsten Henn: The door-to-door bookstore