Hey everyone,

There are mountains of Korean Dramas that I can recommend to you. Many genres and many favourite actors that I love supporting. But one of the things I love the most is to see Kdramas with a bookish theme inserted into the plot, whether it is a publishing company or about a aspiring writer. There are many Kdrama that follow aspiring writers but I felt that we were going to be here for a while. I have five Kdramas that I have watched and enjoyed with a bookish setting in the background.

romance is a bonus book

I wrote a kdrama review back in 2019 (see full review here). This Kdrama follows an older woman at the end of a bad relationship, she is struggling to provide for her daughter and has to make ends meet. She applies for a job in a publishing comany, which is also where her childhood friend works, while he is her boss, she works really hard and manages to find love in books and in her boss.

This is a great ensemble cast of characters, a lot of smiles and laughter but not to mention quotes at the end of the credits that relate very well into the plot of the drama.

When a man loves

This drama is complicated and I always return to it just to remember te final episode. This drama follows a buisnessman, a former gangster, who encounters a young woman and soon falls in love with her. The female lead works at a bookstore, that her father owns, and both the male lead and female lead start to fall in love. It then gets complicated when other people are added into rectangle plus one situation.

I will mention, it is a melodrama, so if you are starting this drama have a box of tissues ready because it does get very emotional at times. Also it has a young Jae B and Jinyong from Got7, how adorable.

it’s okay to not be okay

If you have not seen this drama, then you need to watch it now.

This drama follows a sucessfull childrens author and a male nurse, with the backdrop of a psychiactric hospital and patients dealing with their own mental struggles, this drama is filled with emotional and mental problems of life, with the changed sense to a children’s book. Each episode, would centre around a children’s book with noticeable relations to many of the characters in the ensemble. It has great story telling but not only that, a murder mystery that had been left unsolved for years.

I have to say this is a heavy hitting drama, it hits you in the feels as quickly as one episode finishes. I highly recommend it to anyone.

kill me heal me

I have mentioned this drama a few times on the blog and it is still considered as one of my favourites. Instead of the two leads, we are directing our focus on the second lead, the brother and was also being played by Park Seo Joon. While being the second lead, he was always going to be the character that you wanted the female lead to be with the most but he also was a famous author and took advantage of his sister’s job to learn more about Cha Do Hyun.

I’ll go to you when the weather is nice

This drama is a very slow one but it has the beautiful setting of winter and living in a bookshop. This follows a woman, returning back to a town after going through a slump in Seoul. While she is reliving past memories, she re-meets a man who owns a bookstore after many encounters, they both soon start to open up about each other and start to fall in love.

This was such a beautiful but also sad drama, it’s such a slow pace that it almost felt calming at times. I have always imagined what it would be like to work in a bookstore and this drama entices my love for bookstores.

There is another drama that follows around a famous author but I don’t particularly want to mention it as both the two leads have gotten into some recent controversy, it called Coffee House if you want to look for it.

I tried to think of more but the ones I keep thinking of are about writers which can be made for another post but I wanted to do a whole post of a bookish backdrop.

I hope you are well and safe, let’s home the new year will give us more hope for the future.

XX