Korean Job Discussion Forums

[luvnpeas]

I find myself fascinsated by The Illustrated Pepys, a version of Samuel Pepys's diary that includes some period illustrations. It's really quite fascinating to get such a direct look into such a bygone time. The writing is easy and informal, and goes by quickly yet vividly. It helps that the time was so interesting: the Great Fire, the Plague, the end of Cromwell, the beginning of modern science (Hooke shows up, although I've seen no mention of Newton), war with the Dutch, etc.

[rednblack]

Sorry to say, bugger all at the moment. I love to read, but I guess I'm a bit of a pleeb when it comes to literature. I love the basic mystery,detective, thriller novel.

[ajuma]

Shadow of the Moon by M.M. Kaye. I've read it about 20 times and will probably read it 20 times more. It's a great book (historical love story) about India. It's a hard-cover...falling apart...but I'll never "leave home" without it!!

Next will probably be something by Terry Pratchett...light...funny...deep!!

[giovanni]

The Known World by Edward P. Jones. It won a Pulitzer a couple years ago. It kind of makes me want to pull my teeth out, but if I got through Beloved and Cien A�os de Soledad I should be able to make it through this

[i_teach_esl]

oh my gosh, i just started the known world last week! small world

[giovanni]

[i_teach_esl]

actually, i arrived in korea last saturday. i was reading the book as an E-Book online from my library back home. i was hoping to continue reading it here, b/c i dont have my library card, so i cant log in and get to the book. i had the same issue, tho, i kept having to go back to figure out what was going on. im dying now, i just HAVE to know what happened to the woman who shipped herself in the box.

[dulouz]

P.J. O'Rourke

CEO Of The Sofa

[Son Deureo!]

고백/To Tell the Truth by Robert Charles Jenkins. It's Jenkins' memoir of his deserting the US Army to defect to North Korea to get out of fighting in Vietnam, and the forty years he spent trapped there. It paints a pretty grim picture of his life there, and their attempts to convert him to the Juche ideals, as well as his constant squabbling with the other 3 deserters he was stuck with.

Only the Korean version is in print right now, but it's definitely an interesting read if you're up to reading in Korean. If not, hopefully it will be published in English within the next year or two.

[bluelake]

Currently, Away All Boats, by Kenneth Dodson. I've gone through several Tom Clancy's (I have a couple on my nightstand and ready to be gone through) and even a couple of my son's Star Wars novels.

[swetepete]

"Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader:North Korea and the Kim Dynasty" by B.K. Martin.
It's really good. Bloody sad though.

[corroonb]

The Forever War by Joe Haldeman. And of course how can I forget the verbal diarrhoea I daily encounter on the net.

[mt01ap]

football against the enemy by simon kuper, it's about the effects of soccer on a country, culturally, socially and politically. Great read so far.

[VanIslander]

I never have just one book on the go: one for walks, one for bedtime, one for morning tea, one for weekend jaunts, and one or two for various inclinations. Right now:

Where the stress falls, by Susan Sontag
A collection of essays by the author of Against Interpretation, a deservedly heralded sixties text of culture, aesthetics and philosophy. But this 21st century anthology of her work over the last couple of decades is disappointing, interesting in bits, especially in the last section about travel and places and the early discussions about writing, but her perspective is not enlightening anymore and the middle third of the book is tough going, have left it for last, and cannot get myself to finish the pieces on dance and photography, though I am still trying, should get it done over tea by midweek.

Prague, by Arthur Phillips
Expat life in post-Communist Hungary sounds like an interesting premise but reads like junk, manuscript rejects from reputable publishers, yet RandomHouse has the gall to put 'Reader's Choice' on the cover. This bedtime book is very hard going as I roll my eyes and get up to read jajdude's late night musings on dave's instead, wondering if jajdude is phillips improving...

Roughing it, by Mark Twain
Fascinating tales of travel out West, great descriptions and stories in the hands of a true great of lit. This is my travel book and haven't been out and about on the weekends recently, next weekend the pocket paperback will get way past the hundred pages I've enjoyed to date. Twain's description of days in a stagecoach is anthropologically astute yet not overbearing descriptively: genius.

Tales from the Road, anthology of tales of life on the move
Steinbeck's "Migrant People" and Kerouac's "On the Road" are head and shoulders over the other authors' efforts, even leagues better than Hunter S. Thompson's snippet story from his Rum Diary novel which I'd read last summer and found to be promising and with some skill early on but from halfway through was paint by numbers and very pedestrian.

The Toilers of the Sea, by Victor Hugo
Just started it yesterday, my walking book, take to the park, beach, river. The strength of the voice, the detail of the landscape, Hugo how could I have not read this one of yours before?

East, West, by Salman Rushdie
My bathroom book and the first half (the "East" section of short stories set in India) were a pure pleasure to read, and I will re-read some of the short stories, plan to take it on summer weekend jaunts to go through again, not because I missed anything, his prose being quite simple and straightforward, but because the overall effect and imagery created rocks, like the first time one reads Camus or Kafka, simply original. Though I recognize themes regarding India that Canadians of the Indian diaspora have covered. Anyways, just started the second half of the book, the 'West. part, and while there's a shift in style and topic, I'm having a hard time sustaining interest in 'Yorick' and have chose to stare at bathroom tiles than finish it, and will probably move onto the next story.

By-Line: Selected Articles and Dispatches of Four Decades, by Ernest Hemingway
My mid-morning book and thank god I didn't read this before my career in journalism because his ability to write descriptively would have humbled me, though I'm amazed that the Toronto Star, even the weekend edition, used to publish such novelistic accounts, but as it was the '20s and '30s, standards of form were probably such that as long as what you wrote was true and captivating, as his writing is/was, then damn be it to newspaper article form. His interview of an expat family in japan was so cool, as was his scathing description of Mussolini as a fake, with lots of juicy observed details, this book is of total interest to anyone interested in history, politics, culture, travel, not to mention writing, novels and life in general. I am slowly reading and re-reading various articles, a third way through now, taking my time, as I'm sure to be sad once I'm finished the big book.

[luvnpeas]