If the only thing you know about K-pop is Gangnam Style, this book is for you. And even for someone who knows a bit about the subject, this is a handy book to browse. For me, as an occasional lurker and puzzled observer in K-pop fan forums, there were several moments of minor revelation. Ah, … [Read More]
Category: Book Reviews (page 8)
Book review: The Hairy Bikers’ Asian Adventure
Si King and Dave Myers: The Hairy Bikers’ Asian Adventure BBC / Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2014, 319 pp There are plenty of Asian cookery books out there, but I can’t think of a western recipe book that focuses on Korean cuisine. The Korean cookery books that are in my own library are written by Koreans. … [Read More]
Book Review: Hwang Sunmi — The Hen who Dreamed she could Fly
A brief fable that can delight children and adults alike, the story touches on themes of motherly love, discrimination, otherness, and belonging, while also touching on and accepting the harsh realities of life — and death. As the novel starts, we wonder if we are going to be force-fed a heavy political allegory. Sprout, the … [Read More]
Book Review: Gong Ji-young — Our Happy Time
Our Happy Time is not the obvious title for a novel in which a three-times attempted suicide goes reluctantly to visit a convicted murderer awaiting execution on death row. But strangely, as the relationship between the well-off former pop star and the prisoner from a poor and broken family gradually builds, the connection between them … [Read More]
Book review: Jung Young-moon — A Chain of Dark Tales
Jung Young-moon: A Chain of Dark Tales Translated by Inrae You & Louis Vinciguerra Stallion Press, 2010, 199pp Originally published in 1998 as 검은 이야기 사슬 Jung Young-moon’s chain of forty-five dark tales are dark indeed. Not in a way that will give you nightmares, but in a way that makes you feel mildly uneasy. They inhabit … [Read More]
Book Review: The Defections, by Hannah Michell. Put it on your wishlist
Hannah Michell: The Defections Quercus, 2014, 336pp THE BRITISH EMBASSY, SEOUL STAFF RECORD NAME: Kim, Mia D.O.B: 27/10/1979 POSITION: Translator REPORTS TO: Dalton-Ellis, Thomas NATIONALITY: Korean ETHNICITY: Mixed – Korean/British BACKGROUND NOTES: Born, was educated and lives in Seoul. Family – father, disabled – stepmother, seamstress – mother, English, unknown – uncle, runs school for … [Read More]
Jang Eun-jin: No One Writes Back. Just read it. You won’t regret it.
Jang Eun-jin: No One Writes Back First published in Korea as 아무도 편지하지 않다 by Munhak Tongne, Paju, 2009 This edition Dalkey Archive 2013 Translated by Jung Yewon I can’t remember having cried at the end of a novel before, particularly one in which nothing much happens. No One Writes Back is a beautiful gem … [Read More]
Book review: Martin Limón — The Joy Brigade
Martin Limón’s eighth novel in the Ernie Bascom and George Sueño series covers new ground in many respects. It is the first novel in which we see Sueño on his own, not accompanied by his buddy Bascom. And it is the first time that Limon has ventured to locate the plot in North Korea. This … [Read More]
Kim Young-ha: Black Flower – an imaginative re-telling of a fascinating byway of Korean history
Kim Young-ha: Black Flower Originally published in Korean as 검은 꽃 in 2003 This edition Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2012, 305pp, Translated by Charles La Shure Black Flower tells the fascinating story of a thousand or so Korean emigrants who sailed from Jemulpo (now Incheon) in 1905 in search of jobs in Mexico, and ended up … [Read More]
Chung Hye-seung’s monograph on Kim Ki-duk is a must-read, and readable, study of Korea’s maverick director
Chung Hye-seung: Kim Ki-duk (Contemporary Film Directors series) University of Illinois Press, 2012, 161pp When is the right time to publish a monograph on a living film director? With the KOFIC collection of books, the schedule appears more driven by wanting to get a complete set of directors covered as soon as possible. For a … [Read More]
Book Review: John Everard – Only Beautiful Please
Only Beautiful Please – a British Diplomat in North Korea John Everard Asia/Pacific Research Center, Div of The Institute for International Studies, 2012, 250pp It is always with a sense of duty rather than eager anticipation that I pick up a book on the DPRK, regardless of who the author is. To the extent that … [Read More]
Kyung Hyun Kim’s Virtual Hallyu: more approachable than Remasculinization, but still tough going
Kyung Hyun Kim: Virtual Hallyu — Korean Cinema of the Global Era Duke University Press Books, 2011. 280pp On Planet Deleuze, a world in a parallel universe inhabited by hyper-intelligent philosophers, psychoanalysts and cultural studies scholars, Kyung Hyun Kim’s second book on Korean film will be voraciously devoured, as no doubt his previous book was. … [Read More]
Book review: Yoko Kawashima Watkins — So Far from the Bamboo Grove
Yoko Kawashima Watkins: So Far from the Bamboo Grove Harper Collins, 1986 Reprinted with letter from the author, 2008 183pp This time last year, Wikileaks revealed that when Mitt Romney, then Governor of Massachussetts, visited Korea in December 2006, one of the topics raised by the Korean Acting Foreign Minister Cho Jung-pyo was this short … [Read More]
Book Review: Martin Limón — Mr Kill
Damn. He’s never done this before. This is Martin Limón’s 7th novel in his exciting, action-packed series featuring George Sueño and Ernie Bascom, investigators in the military police attached to the US 8th Army in 1970s Seoul Although the novels have been written over the course of some 20 years (the first novel, Jade Lady … [Read More]
Book review: Modern Korean Literature — An Anthology 1908-65
Modern Korean Literature: An Anthology 1908-1965 Edited by Chung Chong-wha Routledge / Kegan Paul International, 1995, 467pp If you are looking to sample Korean literature in translation, the chances are that you’ll find more short stories than full length novels. This collection, though not universally enjoyable, is extremely useful in giving an overview of the … [Read More]
Royal Ancestors – an unsolicited review
I recently received an email from a friend who was given a copy of Royal Ancestors and Ancient Remedies for Christmas last year: Just finished reading your Korean book, which I enjoyed a lot. I confess I was struck by a similarity between the book and the Jongmyo ancestral rituals, in that I thought it … [Read More]