Books

서울 어디에나 있을 것 같은 동네의 후미진 골목길. 오가는 사람도 많지 않은 가정집들 사이에 평범한 동네 서점 하나가 들어선다. 바로 휴남동 서점! 슬픈 사연을 갖고 있는 사람처럼 얼굴에 아무런 의욕도 보이지 않는 서점 주인 영주는 처음 몇 달간은 자신이 손님인 듯 일은 하지 않고 가만히 앉아 책만 읽는다. 그렇게 잃어버린 것들을 하나둘 되찾는 기분으로 하루하루를 보내다 보니 소진되고 텅 빈 것만 같았던 내면의 느낌이 서서히 사라진다. 그러다 어느 순간 깨닫는다. 자신이 꽤 건강해졌다는 사실을. 그 순간부터 휴남동 서점은 완전히 새로운 공간이 된다. 사람이 모이고 감정이 모이고 저마다의 이야기가 모이는 공간으로. 바리스타 민준, 로스팅 업체 대표 지미, 작가 승우, 단골손님 정서, 사는 게 재미없는 고등학생 민철과 그의 엄마 희주 등 크고 작은 상처와 희망을 가진 사람들이 휴남동 서점이라는 공간을 안식처로 삼아 함께 살아가는 법을 배운다. 『어서 오세요, 휴남동 서점입니다』는 우리가 잃어버린 채 살고 있지만 사는 데 꼭 필요한 것들이 가득한 책이다. 배려와 친절, 거리를 지킬 줄 아는 사람들끼리의 우정과 느슨한 연대, 진솔하고 깊이 있는 대화 등.

An unforgettable and heartwarming debut about how a chance encounter with a list of library books helps forge an unlikely friendship between two very different people in a London suburb. Widower Mukesh lives a quiet life in the London Borough of Ealing after losing his beloved wife. He shops every Wednesday, goes to Temple, and worries about his granddaughter, Priya, who hides in her room reading while he spends his evenings watching nature documentaries. Aleisha is a bright but anxious teenager working at the local library for the summer when she discovers a crumpled-up piece of paper in the back of To Kill a Mockingbird. It’s a list of novels that she’s never heard of before. Intrigued, and a little bored with her slow job at the checkout desk, she impulsively decides to read every book on the list, one after the other. As each story gives up its magic, the books transport Aleisha from the painful realities she’s facing at home. When Mukesh arrives at the library, desperate to forge a connection with his bookworm granddaughter, Aleisha passes along the reading list… hoping that it will be a lifeline for him too. Slowly, the shared books create a connection between two lonely souls, as fiction helps them escape their grief and everyday troubles and find joy again.

In this atmospheric southern cozy debut, Madeline Brimley returns to the bookstore she inherited, discovering that small towns hold deadly secrets. Madeline Brimley left small town Georgia many years ago to go to college and pursue her dreams on the stage. Her dramatic escapades are many but success has eluded her, leaving her at loose ends. But then she gets word that not only has her beloved, eccentric Aunt Rose passed, but she's left Madeline her equally eccentric bookstore housed in an old Victorian mansion in the small college town of Enigma. But when she arrives in her beat\-up Fiat to claim The Old Juniper Bookstore, and restart her life, Madeline is faced with unexpected challenges. The gazebo in the back yard is set ablaze and a late night caller threatens to burn the whole store down if she doesn't leave immediately. But Madeline Brimley, not one to be intimidated, ignores the threats and soldiers on. Until there's another fire and a murder in the store itself. Now with a cloud of suspicion falling over her, it's up to Madeline to untangle the skein of secrets and find the killer before she herself is the next victim.