Korea Historical Research Association (tr Joshua van Lieu) A History of Korea Saffron Books, 2005 It’s the 1980s. In Britain, leftist ideologues such as Red Robbo, Arthur Scargill and Derek Hatton had for years been railing against the government and the establishment using turgid language pilloried in satirical magazines, TV programmes and film (1). Anyone … [Read More]
Category: Book Reviews (page 13)
Mythology in the making: Seoul Selection’s Lee Myung-bak profile
Lee Myung Bak: Korea’s CEO President Seoul Selection, 2008 When their country has pulled itself up from the devastation of war in the space of fifty years, and a man has risen from poverty to the highest office in the same period, Koreans have every right to feel proud of themselves and their country. That … [Read More]
Sex and the City, Korean-style: a review of Min-Jin Lee’s Free Food for Millionaires
Min-Jin Lee: Free Food for Millionaires (Random House, 2007) I hesitated before packing this two-inch thick paperback into my suitcase for a week’s holiday. The cover design doesn’t give much away — a black top hat and slightly messy collection of different typefaces spelling out a title which leaves a lot to the imagination — … [Read More]
Words of inspiration
NO RIVER TO CROSS: Trusting the Enlightenment that’s Always Right There Zen Master Daehaeng Wisdom Publications, Boston US$14.95 The title refers to the idea that you don’t have to make a grand pilgrimage to find your Buddha nature, as it’s already inside you, and this approachable book offers plenty of inspiring thoughts. It starts with … [Read More]
Pyongyang – the view from Europe
Glyn Ford (with Kwon Soyoung): North Korea on the Brink (Pluto Press, 2008) Books on North Korea tend to blur in to one another. There are seemingly countless volumes either describing life under the Kims or analysing the history of diplomatic and undiplomatic engagement between the DPRK and the rest of the world, particularly the … [Read More]
Inheriting the gifts of grief: Brenda Paik Sunoo’s moving memoir
Brenda Paik Sunoo: Seaweed and Shamans – Inheriting the gifts of grief Seoul Selection, April 2006 I remember logging this book in my memory sometime in early 2006, having read some advance notice of in, I think, the Seoul Selection weekly email. I didn’t read the small print too closely, and confess I didn’t read … [Read More]
Sex, modernity and the Korean war: a review of Ahn Junghyo’s Silver Stallion
Ahn Junghyo: Silver Stallion – a novel of Korea Soho Press, 1990 First published in Seoul in 1986 Translated from the Korean by the author As the book opens, we encounter a small village which is somehow untouched by the Korean war which seems to have passed them by. The old order, personified by Old … [Read More]
Racial tensions in Queens
Leonard Chang: The Fruit ‘n Food Black Heron Press, 1996 Leonard Chang’s first novel is proof that giving away key elements of the plot in advance need not ruin the enjoyment of a work of fiction. The book starts at the end, with the hero in hospital, blinded and incapacitated. You are told how the … [Read More]
Book review: Kim Seong-dong — Mandala
Kim Sung-dong: Mandala Translated by Ahn Jung-hyo Dongsu Munhaksa, 1990 A novel about the search for truth, and about the nature of corruption in religion. When Pobun takes his priestly vows, he undertakes not to kill, steal, have sex, lie, drink, wear ornaments, sing or dance, sleep in a comfortable bed, possess gold, or eat … [Read More]
Suicide Notes – a brief review of Kim Young-ha’s I Have the Right to Destroy Myself
Kim Young-ha: I have the right to destroy myself Originally published 1996 Translation by Kim Chi-young, Harcourt, 2007 An entertaining book to read, but somehow difficult to distill and digest. The narrator, who makes a macabre living as a self-employed suicide counselor, bizarrely seeks out clients whose exits he facilitates. A small and eccentric cast … [Read More]
Book review: Brother One Cell
Cullen Thomas: Brother One Cell — Coming of Age in South Korea’s Prisons Pan Books, 2007 A “powerful, harrowing and moving memoir”, proclaims the blurb on the back. “A Korean tear in the muscle round the ribs, a Korean hernia…” reads the selective quote. The cover design, a Getty image of hands grasping prison bars, … [Read More]
Technology in the wrong hands – a review of Robert A Kaiser’s Project Yellow Sky
Robert A Kaiser: Project Yellow Sky — A Korean Conspiracy (Authorhouse, November 2006) Those who visit websites with Korea-related content may have come across advertisements for this book in the Google Ads panel. A topical thriller, about the North Koreans trying to steal nuclear secrets… it must be worth putting in the suitcase for a … [Read More]
Richard Stubbs: Rethinking Asia’s Economic Miracle
(Palgrave MacMillan, 2005) Stubbs’s thesis is simple: that one of the key drivers of Asia’s economic growth has been not free market economics, not Confucian values, not the developmental state, not Japanese or American hegemony, but war, both hot and cold. Stubbs takes seven countries – South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and … [Read More]
Book review: Kim Young-jin on Lee Chang-dong
(Seoul Selection, 2007) I can imagine that there was a certain amount of discussion about the timing of this book. After a break of some years — enforced by his stint as Roh Moo-hyun’s first Minister for Culture and Tourism — the well-regarded director Lee Chang-dong was active again. His new film, with two of … [Read More]
Book Review: Digging to America
My slightly random reading patterns in respect of Korea-related books sometimes turns up a gem, sometimes introduces me to an author I wouldn’t otherwise have read, and sometimes proves a disappointment. This book falls into the second category. It came up on my list of Amazon recommendations based on my past purchasing behaviour, and I … [Read More]
Book review: J Scott Burgeson — Korea Bug
J Scott Burgeson: Korea Bug Eunhaeng Namu, Seoul, 2005 A recent article in the JoongAng daily about a foreigner in Seoul who hasn’t made himself popular with hypersensitive and volatile Korean netizens introduced me to a gem. Burgeson, a foreigner who has been in Seoul since 1996 is one of the more unusual expats out … [Read More]