Author's Note

The temperature I would recommend to you

21 Things I Do for Love
25 Things That Might Not Be So Special, But They Make Life Happen
Birthday Cake│Raymond Carver, Cathedral
The truth is always there 30
Cupcake│John Cheever, "The Weird Radio"
Full Life, Beautiful Sounds 35
Campagne│Martin Schlesske, The Song of the Spruce Tree
40 daily cares with sincerity
Pan con Tomate│David Deardorff and Catherine Wadsworth, What Happened to My Plant?
End of Vacation 45
Tropezienne│Bernhard Schlink, "Summer Lie"
Becoming an Adult 50
Pastrami Sandwich│Philip Roth, "The Unpleasant"
Jack-o'-lantern with an evil expression and the time of night 56
Pumpkin Pie│Gabriel García Márquez, "I'll Lend You a Dream"
There are so many hearts and minds in this world 62
Brownie Cookies│Kim Hee-kyung and Iwona Chmielewska, "The House of the Heart"
My Own Bread 66

Sentences baked one by one

The Heart of Writing a Novel 1 75
The wound shines on its own 81
Macaron│Anne Carson, The Beauty of Husband
Pieces of a Calm and Gentle Life 86
Pancakes│Kent Haruf, "Blessing"
Reading an Uncertain World 90
Chocolate│Julio Cortázar, "The Night Lying Down"
95 people who want to share common bread
Melon Bread│Masahiko Kishi, "The Sociology of the Fragmentary"
If you can walk even late at night, 99
Cream Puffs│Katherine Mansfield, The Garden Party
104 When you leave your native language
Baumkuchen│Yoko Tawada, "Traveling Words"
As long as life is incomprehensible, writing a novel is 108
Tiramisu│James Salter, "If You Want to Write a Novel"
The Heart of Writing a Novel 2 112

Sitting around the still-warm oven

My Dog 119
Family, Close Yet Far 122
Apple Muffins│Jhumpa Lahiri, Just a Good Person
'I', about that unknown 126
Chimney Cake│Agotha ​​Kristoff, The Three Lies of Existence
Clumsy and Wonderful You 130
Steamed Buns│Elizabeth Strout, My Name is Lucy Barton
A delicate gaze gazing at a wound 134
Banana Cake│William Trevor, After the Rain
A Heart That Grows Through Understanding and Effort 139
Donut│Doris Lessing, London Sketches
Honest and Pure Joy 143
Opera│François Nudelman, The Philosopher on the Keyboard
When will I ever return to this moment? 147
Delimanju│Patrick Modiano, "Street of Dark Shops"
Addition 1: Seeker of the Sun - The Taste of Winter 151
Bungeoppang│Delphine de Vigan, "Gratitude"
Sweet, Memories of That Night 156

Lonely like an empty house, but sweet like a marshmallow

Affectionate Words 163
Attitude toward one's own mistakes 168
Sachertorte│Thomas Bernhard, The Hat
Love Seat 172
Whipped Cream Toast│André Gide, The Strait Gate
Longings I Can't Let Go of 178
Roll Cake│Ken Liu, "Paper Menagerie"
183 with a thermos full of black tea
Gugelhoff│James Joyce, Dubliners
What Comes to Mind When Death Approaches 188
Amaretti│Shobata Sho, "Our Days Still"
Love and love again today 193
Wedding Cake│Nicole Krauss, A History of Love
Our Solitude is Soft 198
Colomba│Jhumpa Lahiri, "Where I Am"
Addition 2: Subway Essay - The Taste of Summer 202
Focaccia│Ha Seong-ran, "The Taste of Summer"
Summer 208: Sending Off

Head into the woods with a freshly baked rye sandwich

Love Chapter 219
224 When you want to take a long walk between the trees
Rye Bread Sandwich│Peter Wohlleben, "The Tree Lesson"
If miracles exist in the world 228
Stollen│Romain Gary, Birds Go to Die in Peru
Letters from Two Similar and Different Bordermen 233
Walnut Cookies│Seo Kyung-sik and Tawada Yoko, "Dancing on the Boundary"
The Gentle Joy of Baking Whole Wheat Bread 237
Whole Wheat Bread│Lee Han-seung, "Honest Food"
From "I" Fear to "We" Solidarity 244
Spanish Sandwiches│José Campanari and Evelyn Davidi, "What is a Refugee?"
But that's okay, even so, 250
Cornbread│John Williams, Stoner
Dear Life 254
Sweet Red Bean Bun│Alice Munro, Dear Life
Teahouse Imagination 260

“The time spent kneading by hand and waiting for it to rise,
Be kind to yourself even when you fail
“Allowing that time”
The taste of bread and books delivered by Baek Su-rin!

Author Baek Su-rin said that after publishing “Affectionate Every Day,” she was often misunderstood as someone who really liked bread.
However, for him, who believed that the act of making bread was more important than the bread itself, baking was something he could forgive himself for even if he failed, and from the beginning, the process was more enjoyable than the result.
Baking is similar to 'writing a novel' for a writer in that, although he is still clumsy and lacks confidence when he has to present in front of others, he can continue with only 'love and longing'.

The author, who said that whenever he came across a passage about bread, he would feel affection for the book regardless of the content, said, “I went back and forth between wanting to be a baker and a novelist, and eventually became a novelist.”
But I was finally able to embrace both, because I knew that writing a novel was also “like kneading the dough for a rustic but fragrant loaf of bread to hand over to someone, and then waiting for it to rise.”
This book is perhaps a record of the days of reading and writing of author Baek Su-rin, who has approached writing novels with the “heart of someone who hands over a loaf of bread,” and at the same time, it is a warm greeting she sends to us through those days.

For me, writing a novel is like kneading dough for a rustic but fragrant loaf of bread to hand over to someone and waiting for it to rise.
(…) Today, I am building a small bakery in the air with the heart of someone who gives bread.
To give you, somewhere, some books that seem 'insignificant, but helpful.' _Pages 28-29

Sweet and hazy memories made by my mother,
Donuts and Doris Lessing
Those precarious yet brilliant days of my twenties,
Cream toast with André Gide
'Ulbun' permeates the red color of smoked meat,
Pastrami sandwich and Philip Roth… …

"Affectionate Every Day" tells stories about books and life through 'bread'.
One weekend, sweet and hazy memories, like the donuts my mother made with the mix she bought, remind me of Doris Lessing's "In the Rose Garden," which depicts a mother and daughter hesitantly trying to understand each other.
André Gide's "The Strait Gate" evokes "the memory of my first teahouse" that was engraved in the spring of my twenties.
“I don’t have much money, and I don’t know how precious youth is.” A twenty-year-old who had no qualms about ‘wasting’ time.
The 'unlimited whipped cream toast' tasted during those days when I dreamed of and feared fiery love is also connected to the tragedy of the two men and women suffering from the fever of youth in 'The Narrow Gate'.
The red color of the smoked meat piled between rye breads also brings to mind the image of the slaughterhouse in a kosher butcher shop in Philip Roth's "The Wrath."


In addition, the ‘excruciating’ sweetness of macarons that melt in the mouth and disappear quickly leads to reflections on the inherent beauty of art that cannot be explained by reason (Anne Carson’s ‘The Beauty of Husband’), and chimney cakes, Hungarian pastries shaped like chimneys, mediate the problem of identity that is “strange, painful, but at the same time fascinating” (Agotha ​​Kristof’s ‘The Three Lies of Existence’).
Martin Schleske's "The Song of the Spruce Trees" leads to the long-fermented baking of campagne, and the German Christmas-time meal of stollen leads to the miraculous solidarity of the fragile and seemingly insignificant beings in Romain Gary's "Inhabitants of the Earth."


Reading and writing novels means,
“People think like that sometimes,” he said.
Meeting someone who sings to you

Author Baek Su-rin avoids premature optimism or words of comfort.
Even in the moment of sharing a red bean bun with someone, we do not forget that we are all lonely beings in our own places, each with our own wounds.
The author, who tells the story of Alice Munro's "Dear Life," reminds us that we are all "beings who live with wounds that we cannot easily express to others" and "desires and impulses" that we cannot even understand ourselves, and ponders why our lives are so precious.
And just as Alice Munro titled her work, “Dear Life,” while portraying such a lonely human being, the clue to the answer is again found in “novels.”
These writings, which flow so gently and sweetly but then quickly touch the dulled senses and consciousness, contain the rippling textures of light and shadow that the author has been immersed in throughout his life.
Also, along with that, the passion to “desperately, (…) become someone who can continue to write novels” and the determination that reading and writing novels will bring one step closer to life are clearly engraved in each and every one of his writings.

Through this book, you will be able to transparently encounter the inner self of a novelist who has lived each day given to him with all his heart, while also looking at your own inner self honestly and with a slightly more affectionate gaze.
Even if we are in the pouring rain, we believe that someday the rain will stop, and even if we are walking in the darkness, as long as we hold “small, round warmth” tightly in our fists, we believe that we have a place to return to.
We hope that the newly renovated 『Affectionate Everyday』 will permeate everyone's hearts with a warm and bright light, like the warmth held in each person's hand.


I thought that reading and writing novels was like meeting someone who would whisper to my innermost confession, “People think like that sometimes.”
And I also had this thought.
If that's what a novel is, then life might still be something worth cherishing, as long as you and I are people who read and write novels. _Page 259