Recommended Reading
Note: if you buy any of these books directly through our site (with no detours) we’ll get a kickback of 15 percent for every book you buy with no extra charge to you. This revenue stream will go to support N. Korean refugees.
Jia: A Novel of North Korea(Cleis Press, 2007)
The first novel about N. Korea to be published in English. [Buy]
Famine in North Korea: Markets, Aid, and Reform (Columbia, 2007)
A detailed account of how famine continues to affect the lives of N. Koreans. [Buy]
Rogue Regime (Oxford, 2006)
Jasper Becker details the megalomaniacal world of Kim Jong Il. [Buy]
Inside North Korea (Encounter, 2006)
Norbert Vollertsen reveals what he experienced in N. Korea. [Buy]
The Case For Democracy: The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror (PublicAffairs, 2004)
Natan Sharansky makes the case for democracy’s relationship with world peace (and includes a reference to our site). [Buy]
Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader : North Korea and the Kim Dynasty (Thomas Dunne Books, 2004)
The best recent book on N. Korea’s cult of personality. [Buy]
1984 (Signet, 1990)
George Orwell’s classic story on Communism came to its tragic realization in Stalin and Kim Jong Il. [Buy]
The Great North Korean Famine (US Institute of Peace Press, 2002)
Andrew S. Natsios analyzes the whys and whats of the fifth great famine of the 20th century. [Buy]
The Aquariums of Pyongyang (Basic Books, 2001)
The author Kang Chol-Hwan (co-written with Pierre Rigoulot) was imprisoned in the Yodok Camp at age 9 when his grandfather was arrested as a political criminal. He was released ten years later. The book is about his life before and after the Yodok experience and his defection to the South. [Buy]
North Korea: A Strange Socialist Fortress (Praeger Pub, 2000)
Professor Hy-Sang Lee contends with those who interpret NK’s belligerence as a demonstration of autonomy. Instead he surmises from primary sources that NK’s goal is a reunification by a war of attrition against the US military presence in the South. [Buy]
The End of North Korea (AEI Press, 1999)
AEI’s Nicholas Eberstadt argues with compelling analysis why he believes NK’s demise is soon coming and inevitable. [Buy]
Over the Line: North Korea’s Negotiating Strategy (AEI Press, 1998)
Chuck Down studies NK’s saavy negotiating tactics and how foreign policies should take them into account. [Buy]
Kim Il-Song’s North Korea (Praeger Pub, 1999)
Helen-Louise Hunter, former CIA analyst, discloses and comments on previously classified information on NK’s society, government, and history. [Buy
The Black Book of Communism (Harvard Univ. Press, 1999)
Stephane Courtois et al. (including Pierre Rigoulot) details the atrocities that Communism has wrought in the world. [Buy]
Eyes of the Tailless Animals (Living Sacrifice Book Co., 1999)
Soon Ok Lee, a former NK prisoner and defector, testified before the US Congress and recounts here in the most detailed account available today her experience of being treated as a “tailless animal.” [Buy]
Gulag Archipelago (Westview Press, 1997)
Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s classic chronicle of Stalinist Russia’s labor camps. Must reading for anyone who wants to get a flavor of NK’s system of terror. [Buy]
One Day In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich (Knopf, 1995)
This little autobiography by Solzhenitsyn helped bring down Communism in the USSR. [Buy]
Juche: A Christian Study of North Korea’s State Religion (Living Sacrifice Book Company, 1999)
[Buy]
August 9th, 2007 at 10:45 am
Hi~ Tim
I’m interested in that book
Thnx
Submitted by: eil ParkPark
July 26th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Greetings,
I have just published a novel, Seasons in the Kingdom, 2007, which I know is of fairly wide interest to those with Korean, Korean American, and American GIs who served in Korea backgrounds. The follwoing will give you an idea of the story’s subject, and you can also see more on my website, www.nandupress.com, where the contents, preface, and glossaries found in the book are included. The book is also sold on Amazon.com.
Seasons in the Kingdom is an evocative and compelling story that merges history and fiction into a literary feast for the senses. Describing the events of a small American military outpost in Korea in 1973-74, the story resonates with the experiences of hundreds of thousands of US service men and the Koreans near whom they lived. With vivid authenticity, Tim Norris has created an uncompromising world of human strife told through the experiences of a young GI seeking comfort in a Korean “business girl.” Commerce, deceit, prostitution, violence, all are commonly intertwined in this fascinating narrative illuminated by the grim light of camptown life.
Another recent review…
An unusually compelling and well-written story about an American
soldier’s relationship with a Korean girl who is seeking to avoid a life
of prostitution in postwar South Korea, circa 1973. The extremely
insightful portrayal of their complex relationship is skillfully
contrasted with detail evoking the banality of military camp life and the
culture of prostitution in nearby civilian areas. Extraordinarily
beautiful and detailed “word paintings” of the land and its people form
the background of this drama, rounding out this unforgettable book.
The subject is provocative, and already many former GIs and others have given me very positive feedback on the truth of the story and the descriptions of the time and place. Obviously getting some people to support the work is key for someone like myself. The Korean Quarterly will be reviewing the book, I think in the next edition, but I am not sure. And, the book is out for other reviews. Kathy Moon has a copy, as we have corresponded occasionally about the novel, and others like Wohlee Choe, Songs of the Kisaeng, and Gordon Chang have been supportive. I am willing to send you a copy, but wanted to make sure you would be looking for it, rather than send it blind.
Submitted by: Tim NorrisThanks,
Tim Norris
tim@nandupress.com
207 767 3144