Lunar New Year 2026 live: Year of the Fire Horse
Timing of Lunar New Year feels right for one New York bookshop owner
published at 02:18 GMT
Sakshi Venkatraman
US reporter
I spoke with Lucy Yu, a Chinatown-based bookstore owner in New York City who has festooned her shop with lanterns and tapestries to welcome the new year.
New York has endured a particularly brutal winter, with heavy snowfall and temperatures lingering below freezing for weeks, only now starting to ease.
Yu says she was eager to leave behind the Year of the Snake and embrace the Year of the Horse.
“It doesn’t always feel like there’s a good moment to start anew at the tail end of December,” Yu explains, adding that this year the Lunar New Year’s timing “feels right.”
Her store, Yu & Me Books, sits in the neighborhood’s core, and she notes that this season tends to fill the entire block with an electric sense of anticipation.
The significance feels even deeper for Yu after her bookstore was reduced to ashes in 2023. The community rallied to help rebuild, and she managed to reopen before Lunar New Year the following year.
“I think we have a really deep understanding of looking out for each other,” she says.
For her, the Year of the Horse represents a phase of powerful, rapid beginnings, she adds.
Image source, Sakshi Venkatraman
