Your Utopia: Stories, by internationally acclaimed author Bora Chung, and brilliantly translated from Korean by Anton Hur, is a collection that explores themes of loss and discovery, idealism and dystopia, death and immortality. Chung's unique blend of terrors and wry humor creates a compelling tapestry of narratives that challenge the reader's perspective on the future and the human condition.

In "The Center for Immortality Research," a low-level employee is caught in the crossfire of a gala event gone awry, under the watchful eyes of celebrity benefactors obsessed with eternal life. Meanwhile, "One More Kiss, Dear" reveals a heartwarming yet unconventional bond between an AI-elevator and a resident of the apartment complex. Lastly, "Seeds" offers a glimpse into a world ravaged by capitalism and the resiliency of nature against the backdrop of genetic modification and corporate dominance.

Chung's writing is multifaceted—haunting, humorous, and at times, gross and terrifying. Yet, it leaves readers yearning for more of her unique voice that captures the essence of our deepest fears and desires.

If you're searching for a literary experience that transcends boundaries and offers a window into a world both strange and familiar, Your Utopia: Stories is an essential read.

Same Bed Different Dreams is a wild, sweeping novel that imagines an alternate secret history of Korea and the traces it leaves on the present. Loaded with assassins, mad poets, RPGs, slasher films, pop bands, and the perils of social media, this book challenges your view of twentieth-century history and offers a vision akin to A Gravity's Rainbow for another war, an unfinished war.

In 1919, Korean patriots establish the Korean Provisional Government (KPG) to protest the Japanese occupation. This government-in-exile proves mostly symbolic, but what if the KPG still existed today, clandestinely working toward a unified Korea? The novel weaves together three distinct narrative voices with an archive of mysterious images, twisting reality and blending Korean history with American pop culture.

The protagonist, Soon Sheen, a former writer now working for the tech giant GLOAT, stumbles upon an unfinished manuscript seemingly penned by the KPG. This revisionist history connects both well-known figures and lesser-known individuals to the KPG's grand project, from Syngman Rhee and architect-poet Yi Sang to Jack London and Marilyn Monroe. Even the television series M*A*S*H, the Moonies, and a history of violence from the assassination of President McKinley to the downing of a passenger plane that almost sparked a war are woven into the narrative.

Authored by Ed Park, acclaimed for Personal Days, Same Bed Different Dreams is a raucously funny achievement of imagination. A thrilling blend of history and fiction, it pulls readers into another dimension—one in which utopia is not just a dream, but a possibility.

Crying in H Mart is an exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance. Michelle Zauner, known as the indie rock sensation Japanese Breakfast, proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up as one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; and of a painful adolescence.

Zauner shares treasured months spent in her grandmother’s tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the East Coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, and performing gigs with her fledgling band—and meeting the man who would become her husband—her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live.

It was her mother’s diagnosis of terminal cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her. Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread.

There could only be a few winners, and a lot of losers. And yet we played on, because we had hope that we might be the lucky ones.

In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant — and that her lover is married — she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.

Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters — strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis — survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.

Greek Lessons tells the story of two ordinary people brought together at a moment of private anguish—the fading light of a man losing his vision meeting the silence of a woman who has lost her language. In a classroom in Seoul, a young woman watches her Greek language teacher at the blackboard. She tries to speak but has lost her voice. Her teacher finds himself drawn to the silent woman, as he is also grappling with his own plight—losing his sight.

For her, the pain is multifaceted: the loss of both her mother and custody of her nine-year-old son within a short span of time. For him, it stems from growing up between Korea and Germany, the conflict between two cultures and languages, and the fear of losing independence. Yet, through their shared suffering, they form a profound connection. Their voices intersect with startling beauty as they move from darkness to light, from silence to breath and expression.

Greek Lessons is a tender love letter to human intimacy and connection—a novel to awaken the senses, one that vividly conjures the essence of what it means to be alive.