"The moment you acknowledge its existence, it'll come into creation right inside your mind and grow."

Bora Chung's new collection of short stories are based on haunted objects within a research facility and it's employees.

A lot of these stories bring a sense of strangness and uncertainty with them. As a different part of the facility is explored, a different haunted object or ghost is encountered. This seems to be the basis and connection between each story.

These are told through the themes of horror and science fiction. Although some are creepier than others, there is a lot of violence mentioned as well.

Initially the premise reminded me of the show "Severance" but as I read on the tales became darker.

At the end the author does give there own perspective on why these stories were written as they were.

This was an intriguing collection of surreal horror and fantasy.

The Midnight Timetable is a short story collection, featuring several ghost tales all connected to the mysterious Institute and the haunted items held under lock and key within. Personal preference generally steers me away from short story collections, though having enjoyed Cursed Bunny I was eager to give Bora Chung’s writing another try. I feel The Midnight Timetable has a more consistent standard of story than Cursed Bunny, with each story being strong and interesting in its own right. It also offers a glimpse into the darker side of family dynamics in Korea, particularly highlighting the family-breaking laws on inheritance of debt.

Where The Midnight Timetable fell down in my estimation was its short length. Each story by design is a pure and simple ghost story without drawing in thriller or mystery elements, but they were over in a flash - it might be I prefer a story you can get your teeth into a little more! A prime (and spoiler free) example would be the concluding story, ‘Sunning Day’; a fascinating story worthy of a book of its own, that you barely scratch the surface of before it's over. I found the stories, which shied away from naming characters to keep a conversational tone, started blending into one another quite early on as they were so brief. The sense of paranormal mystery surrounding the Institute was well curated, though I feel a little more info could be given to the reader whilst still retaining the intrigue.

We follow the narrator, knowing only that they work at an institute for haunted items. Employees don’t tend to last long working here, for multiple reasons, but we follow the narrator on their night shift, being told about some select items and how they became haunted.
The stories are creepy, unsettling and yet sometimes a little heartwarming. The stories are not related but flow well and I devoured this in just shy of two days.
I don’t usually read acknowledgements or afterwords but in this book, it was definitely worth the read. The insight on each story and how Bora Chung found the ideas for them was very interesting.
Thank you so much to the publisher and NetGalley for the eARC.

a newly translated literary horror from the author of cursed bunny, out in the UK on October 2nd! set in a research centre which houses haunted objects, we follow as staff working the night shift find out more about the objects behind each door. the stories are unique and explore social issues through the use of horror and the supernatural, I enjoyed tunnel and cursed sheep the most! I was really interested in the concept of "a novel in ghost stories" after reading The Hotel by Daisy Johnson, but this felt more like a collection of short stories surrounding a research facility, whereas The Hotel was able to seamlessly weave the ghost stories together to create a novel and I definitely enjoyed that more

thanks to netgalley and the publisher for an arc✨

I've loved Bora Chung's two previous collections, which were very creepy, original and quite a few stories have stayed in my mind. Of course I was excited about her new book, especially as it is meant to be a collection of ghost stories. The Midnight Timetable is not as memorable as Cursed Bunny or Your Utopia, but it's still pretty weird and it drags you in and doesn't let go, and though at first I was going to say that the stories didn't quite strike me as ghost stories, thinking more about it, they all do feel haunting. There are some scenes of animal abuse, which I usually can't handle, but Bora Chung wrote them with empathy and humanity - it's not gratuitous and adds to the stories, I guess. I liked the overarching idea of this mysterious institute too and, as the stories are loosely connected, the ending wrapped it all up very nicely. And I enjoyed the afterword from the author too!