Koryo Books

This is a tiny Korean book store in KTown. The store itself is pretty small, it's pretty much just one big room of books. Despite this, there is a decent selection of books. But this leads to it being extremely crowded. It's hard to move around.

We visited this store while on vacation. My daughters found out on Google so we walked there from the empire state building. They bought an album, some photocards, and key chains. The price was fair (for NYC) and the atmosphere was cute, with a large selection of books, posters, and collectibles. It was very busy but the staff kept everything running smoothly. My daughters were very impressed with the store and service, and were happy with everything they bought.

Are you a k-pop fan, this is a must visit, we were able to find a lot of collection here, starting with books, posters, wall art, key chains, games, cups with the images of heroes, every merchandise is available here. They are well organised and a quick tip is to go there once in a while to find their clearance deals, they have very popular yet old items in clearance 😀. I am adding the directions to go in there.

One of my go to spots to buy Korean literature in NYC (they offer both copies in Korean and English)! The store also has Korean pop albums and photocards. They have a nice collection of stickers, which I use for journaling and a nice addition to a notebook. There is a large variety genres in terms of Korean books.

If I could give this store a zero I would. I hate this store so badly. So overpriced and staff are incredibly rude. They racial profile you and follow you around the store. It feels horrible walking in there and I wouldn’t recommend anyone to get normal Kpop albums here. Instead go to kpop Nara which is only two blocks away!! They do have Japanese versions of albums and sometimes other versions that are to find but again extremely overpriced. This place is truly disappointing.

What little I saw of this shop was great. However, an employee very rudely and abruptly told everyone that they were closing and told everyone to leave 15 minutes before the stated closing time. The employee in the Kpop Nara store nearby in contrast very respectfully gave everyone a heads up 5 minutes before closing without forcing everyone out. As an Autistic person, I need clear and concise indication on when a store is actually going to close up. Otherwise, it is extremely overwhelming and destabilizing to have my continuum of perusing the store broken by an employee telling everyone to gtfo while thinking that I had at least 10 minutes to spare. This would've been fine if there was a sign outside that said "Closing time: 8:45PM" despite it saying 9PM on Google. But otherwise, my brain is going interpret a stated closing time of 9PM happening at, well, 9PM. I understand that retail work is grueling and this incident wasn't intentionally ableist, but I'm removing 2 stars for lack of clarity. I recommend not visiting this store near closing time due to the possibility of being shuffled out before the stated closing time.

We love this bookstore! For my youngest who is learning Korean this store was perfect! We found so many cute kids books and also some fun K-Pop stuff. Definitely recommend!