Biologicity

Shin Hae-uk

An acclaimed “poet’s poet” with deadpan wit and a gift for lyric innovation reveals an entirely new side of Korean contemporary poetry. This debut English-language collection by Shin Hae-uk offers up poems that rebel against the thin boundaries between self and others, human and object, speaker and addressee. These poems inhabit the voices of houses, colors, planets, childhood friends; they know the manic spunk of a good day and the dizzy lethargy of a bad memory. In this kaleidoscopic collection, Shin breaks open for today’s young poets the possibilities of time, tense, and speaker. Critics in her home country praise her as a prophet of the post-human, asking what is it like to exist and feel—as a dead animal, as a sound, as someone else’s memory. But for all its philosophical intelligence, Shin’s poetry is also funny, friendly, and sometimes even snarky, full of jagged left turns and mood changes. Shin knows what it’s like to feel you can be three different people within three minutes. These quirky, clever poems are for everyone who has ever shared that feeling. Shin Hae-uk is the author of three poetry books in Korean in addition to essay collections and a novel. She won Korea’s Author’s Choice Emerging Poet Award in 2010 and received the Kim Hyun Literary Prize in 2022. She holds a doctorate in Korean literature from Korea University and currently teaches creative writing at Dongduk Women’s University in Seoul. Spencer Lee-Lenfield’s translations from Korean to English have appeared in publications including Guernica, New England Review, Colorado Review, Asymptote, and The Dial. Lee-Lenfield is currently a Ph.D. candidate in comparative literature at Yale University as well as an assistant editor at The Yale Review. Lee-Lenfield’s writing has appeared in PMLA, Modern Language Quarterly, Poetics Today, The New York Review of Books, The Chronicle of Higher Education, Harvard Magazine, and Slate.

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Taipei Story

R.F. Kuang

A wryly humorous and profoundly moving coming-of-age novel that grapples with grief, language, and culture shock—all set against the backdrop of an unforgettable summer in Taipei. College freshman Lily Chen is off to spend the summer in Taipei at an intensive language program like so many Chinese American students before her, hoping to connect with the culture she inherited but never fully understood. But a promising start quickly unravels. Her classes are grueling, her roommate is driving her insane, and a reckless trip to the hot springs with a guy she barely knows soon has her classmates viciously gossiping. She feels adrift, a foreigner in a country she thought would feel like home. Then shocking news Lily’s grandfather has passed away. The loss forces her to grapple with now-unanswerable questions about her family history. As Lily grieves, she’s drawn into a journey of self-discovery—piecing together memories, stories, and silences over a series of hilarious and devastating attempts at connection. What if the diaspora fantasy of homecoming never comes true? What if learning a language can’t bring you any closer to the people you’re trying to reach? What if you search for your family’s history, but your family doesn’t want to share? What if you wait too long to ask the right questions? As Lily struggles for answers, her summer becomes a poignant search for understanding—of herself, her family, and the meaning of home.

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Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, Vol. 14

Kanehito Yamada

At the behest of the Continental Magic Association, Frieren and her friends are in the Imperial capital to stop a plot to assassinate the great mage Serie. Frieren must contend with the Imperial Special Forces on one side and a cabal of assassins known as the Shadow Warriors on the other. The hit is scheduled to take place at a grand ball, but before that happens the Shadow Warriors will make their move to take out Frieren in the streets of the city…

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Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, Vol. 14

Kanehito Yamada

At the behest of the Continental Magic Association, Frieren and her friends are in the Imperial capital to stop a plot to assassinate the great mage Serie. Frieren must contend with the Imperial Special Forces on one side and a cabal of assassins known as the Shadow Warriors on the other. The hit is scheduled to take place at a grand ball, but before that happens the Shadow Warriors will make their move to take out Frieren in the streets of the city…

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What Moves the Dead

T. Kingfisher

From the award-winning author of The Twisted Ones comes a gripping and atmospheric retelling of Edgar Allan Poe's classic "The Fall of the House of Usher." When Alex Easton, a retired soldier, receives word that their childhood friend Madeline Usher is dying, they race to the ancestral home of the Ushers in the remote countryside of Ruravia. What they find there is a nightmare of fungal growths and possessed wildlife, surrounding a dark, pulsing lake. Madeline sleepwalks and speaks in strange voices at night, and her brother Roderick is consumed with a mysterious malady of the nerves. Aided by a redoubtable British mycologist and a baffled American doctor, Alex must unravel the secret of the House of Usher before it consumes them all.

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Convenience Store Woman

Sayaka Murata

The English-language debut of one of Japan's most talented contemporary writers, selling over 650,000 copies there, Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction―many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual―and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal” person excellently, more or less. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action… A brilliant depiction of a world hidden from view, Convenience Store Woman is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at contemporary work culture and the pressures we all feel to conform, as well as a charming and completely fresh portrait of an unforgettable heroine.

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Convenience Store Woman

Sayaka Murata

The English-language debut of one of Japan's most talented contemporary writers, selling over 650,000 copies there, Convenience Store Woman is the heartwarming and surprising story of thirty-six-year-old Tokyo resident Keiko Furukura. Keiko has never fit in, neither in her family, nor in school, but when at the age of eighteen she begins working at the Hiiromachi branch of “Smile Mart,” she finds peace and purpose in her life. In the store, unlike anywhere else, she understands the rules of social interaction―many are laid out line by line in the store’s manual―and she does her best to copy the dress, mannerisms, and speech of her colleagues, playing the part of a “normal” person excellently, more or less. Keiko is very happy, but the people close to her, from her family to her coworkers, increasingly pressure her to find a husband, and to start a proper career, prompting her to take desperate action… A brilliant depiction of a world hidden from view, Convenience Store Woman is an ironic and sharp-eyed look at contemporary work culture and the pressures we all feel to conform, as well as a charming and completely fresh portrait of an unforgettable heroine.

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