Author Guide · Literary Fiction & Speculative Fiction
Books Written by
Charles Yu worked as a corporate lawyer until 2014, writing fiction late at night once his children were asleep. Born in Los Angeles in 1976 to parents who had emigrated from Taiwan, he studied molecular and cell biology at Berkeley and law at Columbia, and was one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” in 2007. His first novel has a hero called Charles Yu who repairs time machines; his second, written in the form of a screenplay, follows an actor stuck playing “Generic Asian Man” and won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2020. He has also written for HBO’s Westworld and turned Interior Chinatown into a Hulu series. This guide covers his four key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 4 key books · 2006–2020 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Charles Yu has published four books: the story collections Third Class Superhero (2006) and Sorry Please Thank You (2012), and the novels How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (2010) and Interior Chinatown (2020), which won the National Book Award for Fiction. Start with Interior Chinatown; then go back to the time-travel novel to see where his recurring themes of fathers, loops and stuck lives began.
Where to Start with Charles Yu
If you want his defining book
→ Interior Chinatown (2020) — the National Book Award winner, written as a screenplay.
If you want science fiction about fathers and sons
→ How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (2010) — his first novel, about a time-machine repairman.
If you want short, strange stories
→ Sorry Please Thank You (2012) — video games, outsourced grief and a doomed crewman.
If you want to see where it began
→ Third Class Superhero (2006) — his debut collection of experiments in form.
4 Charles Yu Books, in Order
Third Class Superhero
His first book, eleven stories none of which had been published before. The title story follows a man whose powers are too weak to get him into the superhero ranks; others tell a marriage as a set of algebra problems (“Problems for Self-Study”) or follow a man who starts calling himself “he” instead of “I”. It led to his selection as one of the National Book Foundation’s “5 Under 35” in 2007.
How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe
A time-machine repairman named Charles Yu lives in Minor Universe 31 with an anxious operating system called TAMMY and Ed, a dog who does not technically exist, while he searches for his father, who stepped into a time machine and disappeared. His mother has chosen to live inside a one-hour loop of the same dinner. Time put it on its top ten fiction books of 2010, and it came second for the John W. Campbell Memorial Award.
Sorry Please Thank You
His second collection. In “Standard Loneliness Package” a young man works for a company that outsources other people’s pain and grief; “Hero Absorbs Major Damage” is set inside a video game whose warrior loses his nerve; “Yeoman” follows a crewman on a Star Trek-like ship who expects to die on the next away mission. Several stories take the form of manuals, monologues or primers.
Interior Chinatown
Written in screenplay form, the novel follows Willis Wu, who lives above a Chinatown restaurant and works as “Generic Asian Man” and “Background Oriental Male” on a police procedural called Black and White, while hoping one day to be promoted to “Kung Fu Guy”. It won the National Book Award for Fiction in 2020 and was a finalist for the Prix Médicis étranger. Yu adapted it as a ten-episode Hulu series starring Jimmy O. Yang, which premiered in November 2024.
In What Order to Read Charles Yu
None of Yu’s books continues another, so you can read them in any order. In publication order they alternate: a collection, a novel, a collection, a novel. The stories are where he tries out forms, from equations to user manuals, and the novels are where he commits to one at book length: the field guide in How to Live Safely, the screenplay in Interior Chinatown.
Most readers come to him through Interior Chinatown, which is also the least overtly science-fictional of his books. If you like it, How to Live Safely is the natural next step; the two share a son trying to understand a father, and a hero who feels trapped in a loop.
A reading path
1. Interior Chinatown (2020)
2. How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (2010)
3. Sorry Please Thank You (2012)
4. Third Class Superhero (2006)
Everything Else Charles Yu Published
Beyond the 4 key books: 3 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Standalone stories
2
2 books · 2015–2021
- 2015Yeomana Vintage Shorts ebook of the story from Sorry Please Thank You
- 2021The Only Living Girl on Eartha novelette for Scribd Originals about the last person on a ruined Earth, running the gift shop
As editor
1
1 book · 2017
- 2017The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017guest editor, with series editor John Joseph Adams
The years · 1976–2024
Quick facts about Charles Yu
- Known for
- Charles Yu is known for Interior Chinatown, a novel written as a screenplay about Asian American typecasting in Hollywood, which won the 2020 National Book Award for Fiction.
- 1976
- Born in Los Angeles, California
- 2006
- First book, Third Class Superhero
- 2024
- Hulu series of Interior Chinatown premieres
- Born
- 3 January 1976, Los Angeles, California; his parents emigrated from Taiwan
- Education
- UC Berkeley, molecular and cell biology (1997); Columbia Law School (2001)
- Before writing
- Corporate lawyer, including at Sullivan & Cromwell, until 2014
- Television
- Westworld, Legion, Lodge 49; creator and showrunner of Interior Chinatown (2024)
- Honours
- National Book Award for Fiction (2020); National Book Foundation “5 Under 35” (2007)
- Family
- His brother is the actor and writer Kelvin Yu
The red mark is 2020: Interior Chinatown, which won the National Book Award for Fiction that year.
How Charles Yu Writes: Borrowed Forms, Stuck Lives
Yu builds his fiction inside borrowed forms. His stories have been written as algebra problems, a user manual for a wish-granting device and a monologue at a pharmaceutical board meeting; How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe is interleaved with extracts from a guide to its own universe; Interior Chinatown is laid out as a screenplay, with scene headings, so the reader sees Willis Wu’s life the way the camera sees it: from the edge of the frame.
He has said he never thought in terms of genre and simply wrote what came out, which usually had a speculative element. The science fiction is rarely about the gadgets. Time machines, outsourced grief and video-game heroes are ways of describing ordinary feelings: regret, loneliness, the sense of being a minor character. Twice he gives the narrator his own name, and fathers who are absent or diminished run through both novels.
Much of the work was written at night around a full-time legal job, and he told Poets & Writers that he wrote Interior Chinatown three times, throwing away the first two versions. His television work shows in the last novel: the structure of an episodic cop show is the cage Willis has to escape.
Watch
Charles Yu on Interior Chinatown
Charles Yu talks about his novel Interior Chinatown in Barnes & Noble’s #PouredOver interview series. From the official Barnes & Noble channel.
Frequently asked questions about Charles Yu’s books
How many books has Charles Yu written?
Four: two story collections, Third Class Superhero (2006) and Sorry Please Thank You (2012), and two novels, How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (2010) and Interior Chinatown (2020). He has also published two standalone stories as ebooks and edited The Best American Science Fiction and Fantasy 2017.
What are Charles Yu’s books in order?
Third Class Superhero (2006), How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (2010), Sorry Please Thank You (2012) and Interior Chinatown (2020).
Where should I start with Charles Yu?
With Interior Chinatown (2020), his best-known and most accessible book. If you prefer science fiction, start with How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe (2010).
What is Charles Yu’s most famous book?
Interior Chinatown, which won the National Book Award for Fiction in November 2020 and was adapted for television by Hulu in 2024.
What is Interior Chinatown about?
Willis Wu, an actor who lives above a Chinatown restaurant and plays bit parts such as “Generic Asian Man” on a cop show called Black and White, dreams of becoming “Kung Fu Guy”. Written as a screenplay, the novel is a satire about how Hollywood, and America, cast Asian Americans.
Is there a TV series of Interior Chinatown?
Yes. Hulu released a ten-episode series on 19 November 2024, created by Yu as showrunner, starring Jimmy O. Yang as Willis Wu, with a pilot directed by Taika Waititi. Internationally it streams on Disney+.
Did Charles Yu write for Westworld?
Yes. He was on the writing staff of the first season of HBO’s Westworld (2016) and co-wrote the episode “Trace Decay” with Lisa Joy. He has also written episodes of Legion, Lodge 49 and Here and Now.
Is the narrator of How to Live Safely in a Science Fictional Universe really Charles Yu?
The time-machine repairman who narrates the novel is named Charles Yu, but the book is fiction. Yu uses his own name for narrators in several stories as well, to blur the line between author and character.
Was Charles Yu a lawyer?
Yes. After a law degree at Columbia he worked as a corporate lawyer, including at Sullivan & Cromwell, and as in-house counsel, writing fiction at night. He left law in 2014 to write for television.
Is Charles Yu still alive?
Yes. He was born on 3 January 1976 in Los Angeles and lives in Southern California with his family.
Footnotes
- Charles Yu — Wikipedia
- Interior Chinatown — Wikipedia
- Interior Chinatown (TV series) — Wikipedia
- Charles Yu: Adjacent Realities — Locus, 2021
- Yu, Charles — The Encyclopedia of Science Fiction
- Charles Yu on Interior Chinatown — NPR, 2020
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Way in the background — almost out of focus — is a guy unloading a van… And I wanted to tell a story about that guy.”
— Charles Yu on Interior Chinatown, NPR Weekend Edition (2020)
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