The stories behind their books

“It’s a very warm novel about things that happen in a convenience store. They’re stories that could happen in our everyday lives, and they move and comfort you. I read it all in one sitting.”

“I was also very impressed by Anxiety.”

“I usually don’t like rereading books because I want to hold on to my initial impression of them. I happened to find this book while tidying my room and read it again, and it was fun because it felt different from when I first read it.”

“That book, Na Tae-joo’s *Wildflower Life Lessons by Na Tae-joo*—my dad went to a bookstore, bought it, and got me a copy to read on the way.”

“The book I read quickly and enjoyed just as much is Dante’s Divine Comedy. Turning each page is so enjoyable and fun.”

“I remember being interested in this when I was really little, borrowing Lovecraft’s short story collection, and thinking, “What is this…?””

“I started reading books because of internet novels. There’s a book by Baekmyo called *Cinderella and the Four Knights*. It’s a romance novel, and it was made into a book. I think that’s what got me started on reading physical books properly.”

“I wanted to express the thoughts I usually have not only through music but also in other ways.”

“The three books I read during this South American tour. They have different themes, but perhaps they form a mysterious combination that ultimately leads to one thing. In this era when everything is changing rapidly, what kind of mindset should we have as we prepare to face the world? What kind of mindset do those who, unseen, quietly bring about change in the world have? The reunification that is sure to come is not simply a burden but an ‘opportunity.’ The very foundation and basis for all of it is the ‘Gospel.’ This Gospel is not simply a message of love; it is the power of God that has come upon us, sinners. I’ve gone on a bit, but anyway, it was really good.”

“When I go to a bookstore, I sit down, pile up a ton of books, and read. I like bookstores because people there don’t pay attention to others. I brought home a whole stack recently, too: “Children of Gaeng-i-buri Village,” “The Little Prince,” “Confession,” “March Is a Red Ravine,” and “Norwegian Wood.” I also have a poetry collection by poet Lee Byeong-ryul. I get a lot of book recommendations, really often.”

“Wow, author Shim Yong-hwan’s new book #365DaysOfKoreanHistoryInOnePage is coming out soon 👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻”

“The book I’m reading is There Is No Such Thing as Nothing Now. I get a lot of comfort from it, and I’m learning how to think differently.”

“La Divina Commedia Written by Dante Alighieri 1308-1320 (The Divine Comedy written by La Divina)”

“Inspired by Shakespeare’s play As You Like It, it explores the themes of birth, love, conviction, and reaching the peak.”

“The Giving Tree, but this feels less like it’s a person I am and more like an ideal I want to become.”

“If I were good at English too, I would have read it that way.”

“I’m Karon’s mom, Kim Jae-kyung, pleased to greet you as an author.”

“I’ve been active for about 13 years. I’ve worked with SHINee, pursued solo activities as Taemin, and also worked on a new project with SuperM. I thought I’d like to slightly change the familiar world I’ve experienced and built up so far, and show you a new side of myself.”

“I enjoyed reading Han Kang’s Yeosu’s Love and The Vegetarian, Yang Gui-ja’s Contradictions, Jeong Dae-geon’s Torrent, and others.”

“You have to put down deep roots so that you can stand more firmly as you grow.”

“DinDin reading at 4 a.m., photographed by my salon buddy Seon-ho hyung #TheInterpretationOfMurder #ILoveYou #KimSeonHo #JongminHyungToldMeToVote #DontBeUpset #DinDin #2DaysAnd1Night #DanbiIProtectedYou”

“When that exact verse appeared before my eyes among the tens of thousands of pages on the shelf, I had no choice but to collapse completely before the presence of the living Lord. It was supernatural confirmation that ‘God is dealing with me right now.’”

“After reading No Longer Human, I sought out and read The Setting Sun as well.”

“How wonderful it must have been”

“The photo and title on the cover caught my eye. Once I finish the books I’m reading now, I’d really like to read it if I have time.”

“I cried a lot, especially at the parts about parents”

“This book was written by my uncle, you know?”

“And the book I’d like to recommend today is The Tea House at Cape Rainbow. It’s a book I read as I entered my thirties. Lately, I’ve found myself drawn to the author’s descriptions of scenery and flavors. When I encountered abstract and emotional ideas, I felt a deep attraction to the writing, savoring it as I formed my own images from my experiences.”

“I have it open to a page.”

“Dad, you watched over my incredibly demanding training and supported me all along—what a thoughtful dad! I’ll keep the “empty jar theory” you told me so often engraved in my heart, and keep trying to fill it with clear water and fragrant oil. You can do it too, Dad!”

“I wondered how a lie could be elegant, and I was interested because it was by the author of Wandeuk.”

“I recently bought this book. It’s called *8 Rules of Love* by Jay Shetty. Um, it’s a cute title, right? It feels a little cheesy. So normally, I don’t think I would have picked it up at a bookstore.”

“It's called 'You Shine in the Moonlight'”

“Among the books I’ve read recently, I read a book called Reading Schopenhauer at Forty. Schopenhauer is pessimistic, but there are times when I actually find comfort in that aspect of him.”

“I think I used to follow it a bit like a fandom thing, reading comics too, reading Lee Mun-yeol’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel, and watching Chimchakman’s Three Kingdoms.”

“I became a fan after reading The Fruit of My Woman.”

“I’ve been a fan for a long time, and since this was a new release after such a long time, I bought and read it without a second thought. It didn’t disappoint, and gave Sacho lots of inspiration. Definitely a must-have, a definite must-have.”

“I would rather say that I listened to this book than read it. In this book, I listened to the author’s lecture, and I heard God’s heart. I feel God’s heart, which longs to bring young mothers and babies aboard the ark of salvation—the salvation we so earnestly desire. It is God’s heart speaking of wanting to save these children born to young mothers who have been coldly marginalized.”

“These days, I think I’ve come to prefer books and works with this kind of humanism.”

“A book that spoon-feeds you.”

“Eugene’s book is packed with content.”

“I spent a long time with him, but knew absolutely nothing about him. In fact, I never really asked. He was someone who laughed a lot, but his laughter didn’t seem particularly genuine. There was a bitter taste to his laughter and words, so I didn’t casually cross his boundaries. I wanted to help him protect himself in his own way, and that was my way of being a friend. I thought it was so like Yoon Seol-ya to put it into writing only now and tell his life story, and I was so glad there was at least this outlet for letting it all out. In a word, he’s such a romantic. I’m honored that one of the songs I wrote was included in it (I was a little surprised by the unexpected song choice)!”

“I like reading books.”

“I realized that Gu Byeong-mo's books really aren't a good fit for me.”

“I also ordered Chinese House, the previous work by Quiet Malgan, right away, and am reading it now.”

“For me, this is another bittersweet seize-the-day story about the preciousness and fleetingness of all the beauty around us. And it’s a heart-stopping, heartbreaking romance, rolled into one. I just love the way Jojo Moyes creates such compelling, emotionally layered characters.”

“I hope you’ll love it. You won’t regret it.”

“I read it straight through for eight hours on the 15th, which was a weekend, and my mother, whom I had buried deep in my heart and forgotten about in my everyday life, came to mind, and I sobbed uncontrollably.”

“At first, it was hard because I kept trying to write only grand, impressive words. I completed it by making a great effort to take the force out of my writing.”

“It felt very fresh to learn that the sijo poems in *Cheonggu Yeongeon*, which I had encountered only in textbooks, are being newly reinterpreted as K-pop lyrics.”

“In The Hedgehog’s Wish, when none of his friends come to visit, the hedgehog gathers his courage and decides to invite the animals, but in the end, he can’t bring himself to do it.”

“파칭코 정말 오랜만에 책 읽는 재미를 느끼게 해줬던 책이에요”

“Meeting this book was a great stroke of luck. It helped me understand my fans a little better and made me want to become a better person. I want to hold on to the precious feeling of liking someone, too.”

“Actually, while creating the music for this show, I think I drew a lot of inspiration from books and videos I liked when I was young. For example, I worked with books like Peter Pan and Snow White, and videos of myself playing outdoors as a child playing in the background.”

“It's called 'The Big Picture' by Douglas Kennedy.”

“I read this in middle school... or high school.”

“It's very fun and provoking.”

“I read almost every book he wrote. I like this one the most among all.”

“So I really, really recommend reading it.”

“It’s kind of giving me chills, but when I read this first sentence, I realized I’m the one who became Spencer as Holfield grew up.”

“I just hope everyone can be happy. Happiness isn’t something you can easily feel just because you want to, and it’s not an emotion you can copy or imitate, either.”

“The Little Prince is, ah, really a song that's kind of like a fairy tale for adults. Um, it's inspired by the original novel, The Little Prince, by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, uh...”

“Then I remembered that I had read Musso’s earlier book, Call from an Angel, some time ago…”

“What I kept close to me all along was the novel the film is based on. I wrote down separately the sentences in the novel that reveal Gye-na’s personality, and always carried them around with me.”

“고등학교 때, 서양고전문학 수업을 들었는데요. 『군주론 』, 『일리아스 』 같은 어려운 고전을 매주 1권씩 읽고 서평을 썼어요.”

“I decided to publish a book to share the happiness of cooking for myself.”

“I’ve really liked The White Book for a long time. It’s an easy, relaxing read.”

“I’ve been reading a lot of books lately. I read Kim Ji-young, Born 1982, and I also read One Night When Little Things Became Big Things.”

“처음으로이 책을 아이들한테 읽어 주면서 제가 눈물을 흘렸던 책이에요”

“Kim Do-hoon is truly a hit songwriter. This book does not simply focus on explaining theory; it also explains the know-how of a popular music composer, so I believe it will be a great help to aspiring composers.”

“A perfect novel in every respect—the readability of the prose, the characterization, the trick, and the structure! It was what got me hooked on Keigo Higashino’s works and on mysteries.”

“I think it’s right now. I can see <You Have to Look at It for a Long Time to Find It Lovely> right in front of me. It’s a book I’ve been reading recently. As I was reading it, I suddenly felt a sense of romance.”

“I was impressed by reading *Illionaire Life*, written by my senior, Dok2.”

“As I read it, I kind of feel like I don’t know that much after all.”

“I got it as a gift, and brought it from home to start reading today.”

“This is a book I would recommend to everyone who is interested in art.”

““Finally😭 finished reading””

““I’ve always liked author Kim Yeon-su. Many people may sometimes feel as though they’re losing, even when they try to find strength in their own circumstances. I feel that way, too. At times like that, a warm book that says nothing can become a very good friend. The author says he came to a realization while considering the various meanings of ‘the words that we don’t lose’ and discovering concrete examples of them: ‘To reach hope, one must inevitably accept despair.’ We’ve come to live through a difficult time, with many unavoidable realities, when everyone is having a really hard time. Even so, I recommend this book, hoping that each of us will find a way to make things better in our own way.””

“That is a definitive answer. If this is the Gertrude Stein who supported Picasso and Matisse, then isn’t this a kind of conclusion from someone who supported artists endlessly? It’s a book I enjoyed reading six or seven years ago.”

“While browsing Instagram, I saw a book posted by an upperclassman from school and bought it. It was a book called *Lessons in Self-Esteem*.”

“I think it's a book that even people with no interest in philosophy can approach easily, and that gives them a stepping stone toward developing a philosophy of their own.”

“Knulp is a book I found after reading Demian and becoming curious about Hermann Hesse’s work.”

“Most recently, I read a book called Almond that a friend gave me.”

“read the book twice.”

“This book shakes readers and ultimately changes them.”

“If you want to read something a little better, I recommend what I’m reading right now.”

“The book gave me time to think about the wounds of the victims and their families, the perpetrators and their families, and the people around them.”

“Ah, I changed it to recommend Paulo Coelho’s book *The Alchemist*.”

““The Temperature of Language” is a book I always keep close and read whenever I’m having a hard time. The title itself felt warm and drew me in. So I read it whenever I have a moment. It gives me a sense of stability whenever I feel worn out.”

“Even deciding what to eat is a negotiation.”

“This book is called "If I Could Life My Life Again" by Hyenam Kim.”

“She wrote "What would've been better if I had known at age 40."”

“So like this, it was like messages that are very professional but also messages from my mom.”

“So I cried while reading this book too.”

“Unlike the poetry books I recommended earlier, this book is not abstract.”

“I recommend this book to those who want to feel comforted in a direct manner.”

“There is a poetry collection by Na Tae-joo called I See You as a Flower. It was a book that helped lift me up when I was feeling a little down.”

“A while ago, a director I know gave me What Is Death? as a gift. It compiles lectures by Professor Shelly Kagan of Yale University, but honestly, it’s very difficult.”

“When I opened my eyes in bed, I imagined what the window would look like if I were in the protagonist's position in the novel, what the desk would be like, and how I could open the drawer.”

“I'm also continuing to read it, curious to see whether I'll make it to the end. Since it's a book that's received so much praise, I want to make sure I read it all the way through, if only out of curiosity.”

“When I read books, I imagine everything in the scenes. These days, I’m reading a book called Dallergut Dream Department Store, and when they talk about the dream department store, I can see it in my head. I imagine I’m shopping there as I read. It’s not just novels, but other books, too—for example, if there’s a sentence where Einstein is talking, I imagine him saying it. (Laughs) That’s probably why I was able to learn video production so quickly.”

“If I were to buy [a dream], it’d be one where I’m flying through the skies or swimming freely in the deep sea. But those kinds of dreams don’t sell well.”

“I read Dallergut Dream Department Store.”

“For me, I’d buy one where we become whales and swim together in the sea. What’s the relation? Because it’s a whale, I’m a whale shark.”

“I’ve told this to CARATs several times. After reading Dallergut Dream Department Store, I haven’t been able to read a book because I’ve been busy with work.”

“Even today, when the word “sublime” has been reduced to a tedious and stifling word, it is unavoidably sublime.”

“I want to return to my childhood and reread Jules Verne’s classic science-fiction novels, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and Around the World in Eighty Days, which I read a long time ago. These days, getting in touch with my inner child helps me relax.”

“Amid a busy schedule, I picked up a book that deeply moved me. The book I really want to recommend to others is The Five-Percent Miracle by my senior Lee Dong-woo, the comedian formerly of Tintin Five.”

“Book: The Little Prince”

“I haven't shown it to PD Park Jin-young yet.”

“I couldn't finish reading The Three-Body Problem because it had more pages than I expected.”

“Likewise, I'm really into Stewart Lee Allen's *In the Devil's Garden: A Sinful History of Forbidden Food*, which is now out of print. It's kind of a world history told through food.”

“Even things I had never tried and couldn’t say I liked often turned out to suit me and become things I cared about once I actually experienced them.”

“Even now, it feels fresh. It’s as if each chapter contains a message hidden like a secret map.”

“What do pigs live on? A delicious read recommended for thinking pigs.”

“I shouldn’t laugh, but that last line is so powerful.”

“It had such a strong pull that I’d throw my entire last paycheck at it. Reading this, I got such an intense feeling, and this kind of reading as a 10-minute read...”

“They say the book is called A Thousand Blues. If many of you also felt a strong pull toward this passage, I recommend giving it a read.”

“It feels like only yesterday that I started yoga, and I’m truly happy to have earned my instructor certification and even published a book like this.”

“If I were to become a singer, perhaps I should be the kind of singer who passes on only white music, even if nodules form on my vocal cords.”

“I did my reading with those.”

“I think Nausea should be read slowly, at a measured pace. One of the characteristics of the humanities is “slowness,” isn’t it? That is about “oneself” …”

“I guess I replied to another post... As for books, I’m trying to read The Vegetarian now...”

“After that, I started seeking out and reading Murakami's major works, such as Dance Dance Dance and Kafka on the Shore.”

“I didn't start writing because of any particular occasion. I gathered the things I had jotted down—fleeting thoughts, like entries in a diary—and they came to be a book.”

““As I was working on my book, I read Jeong You-jeong’s *The Origin of Species* and Shim Eun-hee’s *The Wind Blew in Ireland. Waves Rose in My Heart*.””

“I really, really recommend this poetry book”

“I’d like to talk about Osamu Dazai’s *No Longer Human*, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry’s *The Little Prince*, and Han Kang’s *Human Acts*.”

“Recently, I read José Saramago's *Blindness* and *Seeing*.”

“I even recommended If We Cannot Go at the Speed of Light on Weverse.”

“I’m embarrassed to say, but I’ve only read it as a comic. I actually haven’t read the novel; I’ve only read the comic.”

“SODA’s first Photobook: Candid🍬”

“That’s why I got completely absorbed in the book.”

“I think I’ve read these three books many times: You Too Are a Sky Mallow and Yeontan-gil.”

“I’m especially enjoying the webtoon <The Return of the Mount Hua Sect>.”

“Actually, there were many more kinds of baby food I fed Seo-a. I recorded them in a notebook or on my phone each time. They said the book shouldn’t be too thick, so I included about 20 recipes and snacks for each stage, making a total of 131 recipes.”

“I read To Kill a Mockingbird back in school, and...”

“Ah, recently, for the first time in my life, I closed a book while reading and cried. I sobbed.”

“한번 보시는 걸 추천합니다”

“A book called Iroseok, on the topic of… Looking at this book, I thought the keyword “god” was just right for you, experiencing life for the first time, to whom everything in the world is unfamiliar and difficult. So I bought this book too, and since I declared it and lay down…”

“I recently read the book *Philosophy Changes the Weather*.”

“I heard it was interesting.”

“It’s a book called Do It for Myself.”

“I've been really enjoying Alain de Botton's book The Sorrow That Brings Joy lately.”

“After reading Anne of Avonlea thoroughly, I felt a strong pull…”

“So I lowered the level a bit and set myself the goal of reading all of Minumsa’s World Literature Collection before I die.”