
Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop
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Narrated by:
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Rosa Escoda
About this listen
INSTANT USA TODAY BESTSELLER * NATIONAL INDIE BESTSELLER
INDIE NEXT PICK * Debutiful Most Anticipated Book of 2024 * Powell's Pick of the Month * A Bookshop Best Book of the Year So Far
The Korean smash hit available for the first time in English, a slice-of-life novel for readers of Matt Haig's The Midnight Library and Gabrielle Zevin's The Storied Life of AJ Fikry.
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 heartwarming story about finding acceptance in your life and the healing power of books, Welcome to the Hyunam-dong Bookshop is a gentle reminder that it’s never too late to scrap the plot and start again.©2023 Hwang Bo-reum and Shanna Tan (P)2024 Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
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-
The Rainfall Market
- By: You Yeong-Gwang, Slin Jung - translator
- Narrated by: Rosa Escoda
- Length: 6 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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On the outskirts of Rainbow Town, there is an old, abandoned house. They say that if you send a letter detailing your misfortunes there, you could receive a ticket. If you bring this ticket to the house on the first day of the rainy season, you'll be granted entrance into the mysterious Rainfall Market—where you can choose to completely change your life. No one is more surprised than Serin when she receives a ticket. Lonely and with no real prospects for a future, Serin ventures to the market, determined to create a better life for herself.
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Reminders
- By Marlene Orozco on 04-24-25
By: You Yeong-Gwang, and others
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The Dallergut Dream Department Store
- A Novel
- By: Miye Lee
- Narrated by: Shannon Tyo
- Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
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In a mysterious town hidden in our collective subconscious there's a department store that sells dreams. Day and night, visitors both human and animal shuffle in to purchase their latest adventure. Each floor specializes in a specific type of dream: childhood memories, food dreams, ice skating, dreams of stardom. Flying dreams are almost always sold out. Some seek dreams of loved ones who have died. For Penny, an enthusiastic new hire, working at Dallergut is the opportunity of a lifetime.
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Love The Concept of Living a Life In Your Dream
- By S. Garza on 07-23-24
By: Miye Lee
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The Lantern of Lost Memories
- By: Sanaka Hiiragi
- Narrated by: Hanako Footman
- Length: 4 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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This is the story of the peculiar and magical photo studio owned by Mr. Hirasaka, a collector of antique cameras. In the dimly lit interior, a paper background is pulled down in front of a wall, and in front of it stands a single, luxurious chair with an armrest on one side. On a stand is a large bellows camera. On the left is the main studio; photos can also be taken in the courtyard. Beyond its straightforward interior, however, is a secret. The studio is, in fact, the door to the afterlife, the place between life and death where those who have departed have a chance—one last time.
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Quiet, magical feels...a bit like Harry
- By SHES4AMWF on 03-18-25
By: Sanaka Hiiragi
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Sipsworth
- By: Simon Van Booy
- Narrated by: Christine Rendel
- Length: 5 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
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Following the deaths of her husband and son, Helen Cartwright returns to the English village of her childhood after living abroad for six decades. Her only wish is to die quickly and without fuss. Helen retreats into her home on Westminster Crescent, becoming a creature of routine and habit. Then, one cold autumn night, a chance encounter with an abandoned pet mouse on the street outside her house sets Helen on a surprising journey of friendship.
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A charming antidote for your troubles.
- By Pamela J Wollum on 07-02-24
By: Simon Van Booy
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Sweet Bean Paste
- By: Durian Sukegawa, Alison Watts - translator
- Narrated by: Cindy Kay
- Length: 5 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Sentaro has failed. He has a criminal record, drinks too much, and his dream of becoming a writer is just a distant memory. With only the blossoming of the cherry trees to mark the passing of time, he spends his days in a tiny confectionery shop selling dorayaki, a type of pancake filled with sweet bean paste. Into his life comes Tokue, an elderly woman with disfigured hands and a troubled past. Tokue makes the best sweet bean paste Sentaro has ever tasted. She begins to teach him her craft, but as their friendship flourishes, social pressures become impossible to escape.
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Heartfelt and thoughtful
- By Courtney on 06-26-25
By: Durian Sukegawa, and others
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Mina's Matchbox
- A Novel
- By: Yoko Ogawa, Stephen B. Snyder - translator
- Narrated by: Nanako Mizushima
- Length: 8 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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In the spring of 1972, twelve-year-old Tomoko leaves her mother behind in Tokyo and boards a train alone for Ashiya, a coastal town in Japan, to stay with her aunt’s family. Tomoko’s aunt is an enigma and an outlier in her working-class family, and her magnificent home—and handsome foreign husband, the president of a soft drink company—are symbols of that status. The seventeen rooms are filled with German-made furnishings; there are sprawling gardens and even an old zoo where the family’s pygmy hippopotamus resides.
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Very Enjoyable
- By unco on 09-03-24
By: Yoko Ogawa, and others
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Kim Jiyoung, Born 1982
- A Novel
- By: Cho Nam-Joo, Jamie Chang - translator
- Narrated by: Kathleen Choe
- Length: 3 hrs and 53 mins
- Unabridged
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In a small, tidy apartment on the outskirts of the frenzied metropolis of Seoul lives Kim Jiyoung. A 30-something-year-old “millennial everywoman”, she has recently left her white-collar desk job - in order to care for her newborn daughter full-time - as so many Korean women are expected to do. But she quickly begins to exhibit strange symptoms that alarm her husband, parents, and in-laws: Jiyoung impersonates the voices of other women - alive and even dead, both known and unknown to her.
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This is not a novel.
- By Anonymous User on 02-17-21
By: Cho Nam-Joo, and others
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Anita de Monte Laughs Last
- A Novel
- By: Xochitl Gonzalez
- Narrated by: Jessica Pimentel, Jonathan Gregg, Stacy Gonzalez
- Length: 13 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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1985. Anita de Monte, a rising star in the art world, is found dead in New York City; her tragic death is the talk of the town. Until it isn’t. By 1998 Anita’s name has been all but forgotten—certainly by the time Raquel, a third-year art history student is preparing her final thesis. On College Hill, surrounded by privileged students whose futures are already paved out for them, Raquel feels like an outsider. Students of color, like her, are the minority there, and the pressure to work twice as hard for the same opportunities is no secret.
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Thoroughly enjoyed every minute of this book.
- By Ulissa on 03-14-24
By: Xochitl Gonzalez
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The Miracles of the Namiya General Store
- By: Keigo Higashino
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii, Sura Siu, Kyle Omori
- Length: 9 hrs and 54 mins
- Unabridged
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“From exactly midnight until daybreak, the Namiya General Store advice box will be reopening for one night only.” When three delinquents hole up in an abandoned general store after their most recent robbery, to their great surprise, a letter drops through the mail slot in the store’s shutter. This seemingly simple request for advice sets the trio on a journey of discovery as, over the course of a single night, they step into the role of the kindhearted former shopkeeper who devoted his waning years to offering thoughtful counsel to his correspondents.
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One of my favorite books now
- By Anonymous User on 01-15-23
By: Keigo Higashino
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The Cemetery of Untold Stories
- By: Julia Alvarez
- Narrated by: Alma Cuervo
- Length: 8 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories, doesn’t want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories—literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and revisions, and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her.
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Not good for audiobook
- By Dana on 06-17-24
By: Julia Alvarez
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We'll Prescribe You a Cat
- By: Syou Ishida, E. Madison Shimoda - translator
- Narrated by: Naruto Komatsu, Natsumi Kuroda
- Length: 7 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Tucked away in an old building at the end of a narrow alley in Kyoto, the Kokoro Clinic for the Soul can only be found by people who are struggling in their lives and genuinely need help. The mysterious clinic offers a unique treatment to those who find their way there: it prescribes cats as medication. Patients are often puzzled by this unconventional prescription, but when they “take” their cat for the recommended duration, they witness profound transformations in their lives, guided by the playful, empathetic, occasionally challenging yet endearing cats.
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perfection
- By Theasophia on 09-05-24
By: Syou Ishida, and others
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The Great Divide
- A Novel
- By: Cristina Henriquez
- Narrated by: Robin Miles
- Length: 13 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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It is said that the canal will be the greatest feat of engineering in history. But first, it must be built. For Francisco, a local fisherman who resents the foreign powers clamoring for a slice of his country, nothing is more upsetting than the decision of his son, Omar, to work as a digger in the excavation zone. But for Omar, whose upbringing was quiet and lonely, this job offers a chance to finally find connection.
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Story went nowhere
- By Michelle Maple on 04-11-24
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Intermezzo
- A Novel
- By: Sally Rooney
- Narrated by: Éanna Hardwicke
- Length: 16 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Peter is a Dublin lawyer in his thirties—successful, competent, and apparently unassailable. But in the wake of their father’s death, he’s medicating himself to sleep and struggling to manage his relationships with two very different women—his enduring first love, Sylvia, and Naomi, a college student for whom life is one long joke. Ivan is a twenty-two-year-old competitive chess player. He has always seen himself as socially awkward, a loner, the antithesis of his glib elder brother. Now, in the early weeks of his bereavement, Ivan meets Margaret.
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I felt a lot of empathy towards the excellently developed characters.
- By Hanoverian girl on 09-29-24
By: Sally Rooney
Calming.
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British Reader of a Korean Authored Book?
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Beautiful story about everyday people
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Beautiful writing. Poor audio.
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Met me where I needed it to
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Listened a few times
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Relatable and thought-provoking
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unexpected
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This book has been added to my “re-read/re-listen” list! 😍
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Really resonated
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