From the publisher’s website: The winds of fate are blowing through the realm of Midgard. Ragnarok, the prophesized fall of the gods, is at hand, and the age of Man is set to begin. But the ancient gods are not about to resign themselves to fate. They have sent their elite warriors, the Valkyries, to … [Read More]
Archives: Books (page 98)
The Great Successor
From the publisher’s website: The Great Successor is an irreverent yet insightful quest to understand the life of Kim Jong Un, one of the world’s most secretive dictators. Kim’s life is swathed in myth and propaganda, from the plainly silly–he supposedly ate so much Swiss cheese that his ankles gave way–to the grimly bloody stories of … [Read More]
Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea
From the publisher’s website: WINNER OF THE BBC SAMUEL JOHNSON PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 2010 A spectacularly revealing and harrowing portrait of ordinary lives in the world’s least ordinary country, North Korea North Korea is Orwell’s 1984 made reality: it is the only country in the world not connected to the internet; Gone with the Wind is a dangerous, … [Read More]
Interviews with North Korean Defectors: From Kim Shin-jo to Thae Yong-ho
From the publisher’s website: Originally compiled and written by North Korean defector and author Lim Il, this English-language edition, thoroughly annotated by Dr. Adam Zulawnik, is a fascinating collection of thirty-four interviews with highly prominent North Korean defectors residing in South Korea, ranging from religious figures, to artists, politicians, North Korea experts, and even divers … [Read More]
Soju: A Global History
From the publisher’s website: Hyunhee Park offers the first global historical study of soju, the distinctive distilled drink of Korea. Searching for soju’s origins, Park leads us into the vast, complex world of premodern Eurasia. She demonstrates how the Mongol conquests of the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries wove together hemispheric flows of trade, empire, scientific … [Read More]
Understanding Hallyu: The Korean Wave Through Literature, Webtoon, and Mukbang
This book sheds light on aspects of the Korean Wave and Korean media products that are less discussed—Korean literature, webtoon, and mukbang. It explores the making of these Korean popular cultural products and how they work and engage media recipients regardless of their different national, cultural, and geographical backgrounds. Drawing on narrative theory and cultural … [Read More]
Routledge Handbook of Contemporary North Korea
From the publisher’s website: The Routledge Handbook of Contemporary North Korea presents a comprehensive picture of contemporary North Korea, placed in historical context and set against the overlapping fields of politics, economy, culture, society and foreign relations. Spanning a period of significant transition for North Korea, this volume provides accurate analysis and applications of both historical and … [Read More]
Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform
From the publisher’s website: In the mid-1990s, as many as one million North Koreans died in one of the worst famines of the twentieth century. The socialist food distribution system collapsed primarily because of a misguided push for self-reliance, but was compounded by the regime’s failure to formulate a quick response-including the blocking of desperately … [Read More]
Routledge Handbook of Modern Korean History
From the publisher’s website: Beginning in the mid-nineteenth century when Korea became entangled in the world of modern imperialism and the old social, economic and political order began to change; this handbook brings together cutting edge scholarship on major themes in Korean History. Contributions by experts in the field cover the Late Choson and Colonial … [Read More]
Divorce in South Korea: Doing Gender and the Dynamics of Relationship Breakdown
From the publisher’s website: It may sound logical that individualistic attitudes boost divorce. This book argues otherwise. Conservative norms of specialized gender roles serve as the root cause of marital dissolution. Those expectations that prescribe what men should do and what women should do help break down marital relationships. Data from South Korea suggest that … [Read More]
Language and Truth in North Korea
From the publisher’s website: In this innovative and persuasive volume, Sonia Ryang offers new ways to think about North Korea and how truth emerges over decades from within a dominant discourse. It explores four discrete yet mutually related domains of discourse: North Korea’s literary purge of the 1950s–1960s; its state-initiated linguistic reforms of the 1960s–1980s; … [Read More]
Monastic Education in Korea: Teaching Monks about Buddhism in the Modern Age
From the publisher’s website: What do Buddhist monks learn about Buddhism? Which part of their enormous canonical and non-canonical literature do they choose to focus on as the required curriculum in their training, and what do they elect to leave out? The cultural depository of Buddhism includes some four thousand canonical texts, hundreds of other … [Read More]
Jejueo: The Language of Korea’s Jeju Island
From the publisher’s website: Jeju Island, located about 30 miles southwest of the Korean mainland, is famous for its natural beauty, dolhaleubang (“stone grandfather”) statues, haenyeo (“sea women”) divers—and its language, which has only recently been recognized as distinct from Korean. This finding—still considered controversial—undermines the centuries-old belief that Korea has a single language within its borders and opens … [Read More]
Where Clouds Pass By: Selected Poems of Cho Byung-Hwa
No further information available. The title appears to be for sale at LTI Korea, and you might find second hand copies available somewhere. [Read More]
So Far from the Bamboo Grove
From the back cover: In the final days of World War II, Koreans were determined to take back control of their country from the Japanese and end the suffering caused by the Japanese occupation. As an eleven-year-old girl living with her Japanese family in northern Korea, Yoko is suddenly fleeing for her life with her … [Read More]
Folk Tales from Korea
From the publisher’s website: Folk Tales from Korea is a fun way to access to the Korean ethos. Enjoy these folk tales handed down through the generations and you will gain a better understanding of the Korean people. You will most certainly recognize the Confucius influence on people’s lives. “These 99 examples are as various as they are enjoyable, some … [Read More]