Now Press - Odyssey in San Jose 圣荷奥德赛 (Pre-order)

📚✨ Book Launch | Oddsey in San Jose《圣荷奥德赛》
A Now Place 此间 × Now Press 此书  × Buwa 布瓦 collaboration
Written by Buwa 布瓦 ｜Artwork & Design by Akaa Ling 阿卡 ｜Editing by Qi An

🌀 Hand-bound | Riso printed | 3-in-1 set | 80 pages

Poetry × Fiction × Diasporic longing

“When words tangle, we go for a walk.”
—— from Oddsey in San Jose

How do we live slowly in a land built for speed?
This question echoes through the pages of Odyssey in San Jose, a handmade bilingual artbook composed of 6 poems and 1 fiction, collaboratively published by Now Press 此书 and Buwa 布瓦, a Chinese diasporic writer whose journey from Baltimore to San Jose traces the tender negotiations between self-preservation and creation.

📦 This is the first collaborative title by Now Press 此书, a community-rooted publishing project of Now Place.
🎨 Art, book design, and binding are done by artist Akaa Ling 阿卡
🖋 Editing and translation in collaboration with Qi An 齐谙.

—

At the heart of Oddsey in San Jose lies a soft defiance —
a lyrical resistance to urgency, to distance, to the cold logic of reproducibility.

“Even if it means driving for a while, we still go for a walk.”

In a world that demands acceleration, walking becomes a sacred act:
to pause, to reflect, to remember.

In Buwa’s words, “lyricism stays irreproducible.”

From the dislocation of migration to the everyday stubbornness of creating — this book is an ode to the in-between, the halfway homes we build through language, friendship, and print.

—

🌿 Each copy is hand-bound, Riso printed, and folded with care.
🧷 Exposed stitches speak of the labor and trust behind the scenes.
📚 The book comes as a 3-volume set, housed in a sleeve —
like fragments of a journey gathered gently in both hands.

—

In a world obsessed with productivity, this book moves differently.
It walks.
It gets lost.
It pauses — and in pausing, listens.

—

Oddsey in San Jose is also the very first title under Now Press 此书, the publishing arm of Now Place 此间. We didn’t make it the way big publishers do. There were no rigid roles, no tidy flowcharts, no factory-made polish.
We made it the only way we know how:
together, messily, with trust.

📍 Available at Now Place 此间
📬 Shipping available across U.S. and internationally
📚 Limited edition / 3-in-1 set / 80 pages total

The book is hand made and made to order. it usually will be available in 3-5 days

For everyone breathing in the in-between — this book is for you.