Two of my favorite people in the world are becoming Seoul residents! Which means more reason for prolonged visits, hopefully sooner than later. One of the experiences I'm determined to make happen is an intense exploration of hanok. If your curiosity is at all piqued, definitely...
Re Jane cleverly recasts Jane Eyre as a Korean American from Queens If nothing else, choosing to retell a revered classic as a first novel requires either supreme spunk or reckless fatuity. For Patricia Park – who happens to be a thesis-advisee and protégée of National...
The more I read about North Korea, the more flabbergasted I become that THREE generations of Kim dictators have managed to shutter out most of the world for this long. So tragically epic or utterly preposterous – with little in between – are the limited...
'The Great Leader and the Fighter Pilot' presents a riveting slice of North Korean history Writing one of the most difficult-to-read books ever – Escape from Camp 14 (2012), about a young man’s harrowing odyssey from North Korea where he was bred as a labor camp slave...
Headlines in 2009 put Laura Ling and Euna Lee on screens and print around the world. 'American journalists held captive in North Korea' was certainly not a common occurrence. While filming footage for a documentary on North Korean defectors in March 2009, three colleagues from...
Over a decade has passed since a Suki Kim title landed on my shelves. That she's been repeatedly crossing the "immutable border" into North Korea since 2002 – just months after George W. Bush dubbed the closed country as one of the "axis of evil"...
While the majority of the nonfiction books about North Korea have focused on the extreme deprivation and unbearable suffering of the common citizen – for example, labor camps and slave children born to prisoners in Blaine Harden's Escape from Camp 14, numerous "ordinary lives" in Barbara Demick's...
Western children's songs and nursery rhymes with their upbeat tempo and easy rhythms often mask unpleasant, even frightening, scenarios: "Ring Around the Rosie" is widely considered to be a reference to England's 17th-century Great Plague, "Rock-a-bye, Baby" ends with a warning about the possibility of violent...
If pictures speak a thousand words, then you've pretty much got the whole of man's modern history right here in Jimi Lee's wordless, wondrous book about our ever-changing place in our world. In the beginning, we had plants and trees. And then the building began, and the...
Ellen Oh, author of the acclaimed Prophecy trilogy – starring a third-century, yellow-eyed, teenage supergirl demon slayer – is channeling her own colorful fighting spirit. Two-thirds of her series, Prophecy and Warrior, are available now. King hits shelves this coming December. In the meantime, Oh herself has gone...
Ellen Oh’s Prophecy Trilogy and Why #WeNeedDiverseBooks For Ellen Oh, good things seem to happen in threes. She’s the proud mother of three daughters. She’s had three careers – lawyer, professor, and finally a published writer (after 40!). The third book she wrote got her a three-book...
Not to discourage anyone, but feel free to stop reading any further and just go to your favorite bookstore, walk to your nearest library, click online, or visit your most literary buddy's shelves, and open to the first page of Our Happy Time as soon...
Summer is finally, suddenly almost here (we had snow just two weeks ago where I happen to be stuck). With that steady warmth comes the sort of utter enchantment found between the pages of Suzy Lee's wordless Wave-y wonder. Really, who needs text when you have such whimsical, beckoning expanses? Arriving...
*STARRED REVIEW "I do not specifically reveal the era or elucidate Korea's political situation," writes Kyung-sook Shin, recipient of the 2011 Man Asian Literary Prize for Please Look After Mom, in the ending of her latest spectacular novel in English translation. Ironically, those missing details make this story...
Who doesn't love the unlimited possibility of socks? Polka dotted, striped, green, yellow, even holey socks add just the right flash of whimsy to perfect any outfit. If you're thinking of changing your look, choose either baby socks and daddy socks. Add holiday cheer to your...
At 13, Se-young is on the brink of manhood, but the person who should be his primary role model – his father – left some five years ago. Se-young’s seamstress mother works hard to support the abandoned pair in their small, remote village. Their constricted...
This new year couldn't start off with a better title. At a mere 134 pages, it's perfect to read in a single sitting, although the story's loving spirit is sure to linger. It's also the ideal gift to share with anyone and everyone who holds...
I haven't seen Patti Kim’s name on a book cover in quite a while ...
Earlier this year, I received an email from a Chinese Canadian author, May Q. Wong, inquiring about "a shipload of Koreans who sailed to Mexico to find a better life." Clueless, I forwarded her request to a few of my scholar friends and colleagues ...
* STARRED REVIEW After surviving the Korean War, Yohan spends another year in a prisoner-of-war camp south of the new border that splits the country in two. Rather than return north, where no one awaits him, Yohan begins life anew in a faraway coastal Brazilian village as...
