Seven people gathered around a small table for a lively discussion of Albert Camus' "The Stranger" in the fifth-floor lounge of Hongik Mungo in Seoul's Seodaemun District on July 29. The staff reading club calls itself Odok Odok, a pun combining the number five of the fifth-floor and reading in Korean. "Just as light casts shadows, truth comes with discomfort," one member said. "Isn't the sun in the novel a device that reveals the truth?" "The sun cannot be avoided and keeps following him around. So I thought it was the inescapable fact of his mother's death," another member said. "Even while sunbathing or on a date, his mother's death keeps weighing on his mind." The participants first met as co-workers. Five of the bookstore's eight current employees participate in the club, gathering before their afternoon shifts to talk. Two former employees pursued other book-related careers, but they still return to their former workplace every month. The club has forged a bond extending beyond the store. Hongik Mungo, located just outside Sinchon Station on Seoul Subway Line 2, has been a fixture