What Are You Reading 2013 - Page 45

Just Read
Nothing to Envy


This was a very pleasant read. Contrasting with previous books I’ve read on NK, this one was relatively more upbeat. Instead of focusing on the infamous gulags and prison camps, this book focused on normal citizens trying to live normal lives. This book is great because it didn’t talk about the calamities that westerns typically read about; it didn’t thrive on pompous description of famines and prison brutalities; instead, the focus was on how average citizens of North Korea silently coped with difficulties that are forever increasing and continually perceived as the norm.

The story follows five or so main characters of different backgrounds and social statuses, all connected in some way, and how they all eventually came to the realization that they had been living in lies, and ‘escaped’ (don’t really like this word, it’s closer to decided to leave illegally) North Korea via various different methods. There were stories on romance, on movies and gifts, on university enrolments and job assignments, on riding trains, on entrepreneurship, on technologies, and on just about any and every routine thing you can think of.

I like this book primarily because it makes a strong point that, even in North Korea, most people are still normal, not everyone is being tortured and abused in gulags. People still live, or at the very least, try to live normal lives. Aside from the awful regime, NKers are just normal people like everyone else.

Reading
The Round House


I'm about thirty pages in, and it's quite a page turner.

First Man of Rome


I read about ten pages of this, and I was so confused... I think I'll give this another try at some later point.

Next
Shantaram


Behind the Beautiful Forevers


The Fault in our Stars

I'm really going to hold this book off for a bit, because there are such great expectations, I don't know how to approach it.