The Midnight Timetable

Hardback Published on: 02/10/2025
Price: £14.99
Free UK delivery on orders over £25, otherwise £3.99
In stock
Usually dispatched within 1-2 days
Make and edit your lists in your account
Check click & collect stock near you
Collect today: Pay in shop
In stock
Usually dispatched within 1-2 days
Check click & collect stock near you
Collect today: Pay in shop

Bookseller Reviews

View all
The Midnight Timetable
Unsettling in the Best Way
The Midnight Timetable by Bora Chung is a series of interconnected short stories about all the ways we can be haunted! The stories revolve around an instit... READ MORE
Chloe
The Midnight Timetable
Eerie and Imaginative.
Bora Chung never fails to bring the best and weirdest little ghost stories, and she certainly delivered with her latest release. The Midnight Timetable is ... READ MORE
Kerry-Anne at Scarborough
The Midnight Timetable
Buy-on-sight author
Look, I'm biased - I see Bora Chung, I buy it. Her writing gets under your skin in the best ways and can make you reevaluate the limits of the human psyche... READ MORE
Sam is Reading
The Midnight Timetable
Allegorical, Spooky and Smart Horror
The Midnight Timetable is new territory for Bora Chung, as this new set of short stories are interconnected. Bora Chung weaves together the weird stories o... READ MORE
Rosie at Peterborough
configDetails.options.our_view_title_text

An employee in a mysterious research institute discovers the truths behind the curious objects kept in its laboratories and why so many employees before them no longer work there. The short ghost tales in The Midnight Timetable are equal parts unsettling, political and darkly funny, highlighting Chung's talent as both a thrilling storyteller and one of Korean literature's most brilliant, insightful and profound voices.

2025's Best Translated Fiction

Synopsis

In a labyrinthine research facility where those who open the wrong door might find it's disappeared behind them, or that the echoing footsteps they're running from are their own, an unnamed protagonist begins their night shift under the watchful eye of the building's enigmatic senior guard.

Each evening, as the fluorescent lights hum and the silence grows heavier, the guard shares another story - of cursed objects hidden behind security glass, of lives unspooled by vengeance, sorrow or revelation. These tales are not mere ghost stories. They're warnings. Lessons. Or perhaps confessions.

As the nights stretch on and reality frays, the protagonist starts to suspect that the building itself is alive with malevolent intent - that the objects aren't just cursed, but waiting. Watching.

Equal parts bone-chilling, wryly funny and deeply political, The Midnight Timetable is a masterful work of literary horror from one of our time's greatest imaginations.

Publisher information

  • Publisher: John Murray Press
  • ISBN: 9780349705170
  • Number of pages: 208
  • Dimensions: 218 x 140 x 18 mm
  • Weight: 301g
  • Languages: English

Customer Reviews

View all
The Midnight Timetable
Unsettling, imaginative, and profoundly moving
Bora Chung’s The Midnight Timetable is a haunting, brilliantly constructed novel that lingers long after the final page. Set within a mysterious institute ... READ MORE
Nemra
The Midnight Timetable
Suspencefull and dark anthology of horror stories
My first foray into Bora Chung writing and it will not be my last. An anthology of horror stories based around objects in the institute as told to the new ... READ MORE
Amelia Yates
This reviewer received a free of charge product for review.
The Midnight Timetable
Occasionally sad, often spooky, very enjoyable
This was so fun! I heard someone describe some other book recently as feeling folkloreish, as in “like a collection of urban legends”, and that’s exactly w... READ MORE
Eleanor Franzen
This reviewer received a free of charge product for review.
The Midnight Timetable
A great collection of spooky short stories.
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... READ MORE
Amy Carter
This reviewer received a free of charge product for review.
The Midnight Timetable
Unnerving but somehow cosy.
Perfect for curling up on a gloomy afternoon. Spine-tingling but thoughtful and charming too.
Katy@Guildford
The Midnight Timetable
brilliant read!
I wasn't really sure what to expect from this book, but what a brilliant read! The interconnected stories work really well and there is enough reality in... READ MORE
jean
The Midnight Timetable
Five stars!
The Midnight Timetable by Bora Chung is a strange, unsettling and hypnotic book that blurs the boundaries between horror, surrealism and philosophical refl... READ MORE
The Secret Book Review
The Midnight Timetable
Disorientating and unsettling
‘Cursed Bunny’ was one of the first East Asian translated pieces of fiction I ever read and now I am an avid consumer of such works, so I have a lot to tha... READ MORE
Megan Carr