South Korea

The Secret Mission to Feed North Koreans

Rice from Heaven: The Secret Mission to Feed North Koreans by Tina M. Cho

September 17, 2018 by BlackRaven Leave a Comment

Based on a true story, Rice from Heaven: The Secret Mission to Feed North Koreans gives a softer view of a very true hardship the people of North Korea face. When a village in South Korea decides to secretly send balloons filled with rice to feed the hungry people of North Korea, they are faced with many obstacles: the other villagers do not want to give aide to the enemy. The North Korean soldiers could see the balloons and shoot them down. They do not know if the people get the food as everything is done in a way that […]

9/17/2018 BlackRaven's CBR10 Review No:359 |

Repeating history?

This Kind of War by T.R. Fehrenbach

February 16, 2018 by thewheelbarrow Leave a Comment

I have many thoughts about this book but as always, here’s the situation that led to me reading it. This Kind of War is another book from the Army Chief of Staff’s reading list. It has also been recommended by Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis as a must-read. Secretary Mattis is known, colloquially, as the Warrior Monk due to his dedication to his craft and his knowledge and understanding of making war. He is known to be a voracious reader and believes that all leaders should be reading. From Task and Purpose, Secretary Mattis said “You need to have that […]

2/16/2018 thewheelbarrow's CBR10 Review No:9 |

A buzzing sound began in my brain

A Small Revolution by Jimin Han

December 7, 2017 by borisanne Leave a Comment

This book came to me by way of Amazon Prime’s First Reads program, so it was free, which was the correct price for it. I did keep wanting to love it, but fundamentally I hated it. Here is what it had going for it: it was a very fast read. A Small Revolution is the story of a young Korean-American woman – our narrator, Yoona – who does a program in the summer between high school and college that brings Korean-Americans to South Korea for tour and immersion in the culture (it sounded to me like an equivalent program to […]

12/7/2017 borisanne's CBR9 Review No:43 |

Imagine Russia Kidnapped Brangelina to Make Putin Propaganda

A Kim Jong-Il Production: The Extraordinary True Story of a Kidnapped Filmmaker, His Star Actress, and a Young Dictator's Rise to Power by Paul Fischer

January 29, 2016 by expandingbookshelf 1 Comment

Remember the hissy fit North Korea pitched over Seth Rogan’s cinematic turd fest The Interview? From their reaction, you’d think the famously repressive country had something against the silver screen. As it turns out, nothing could be further from the truth. After Kim Jong-il died in 2011 (he was the one in jumpsuits) it came out that the former Dear Leader was a huge movie buff, with a dedicated smuggling system implemented just so he could watch western cinema. In his twenties, he was appointed Cultural Arts Director of the Propaganda and Agitation Department. The Department started churning out movies, […]

1/29/2016 expandingbookshelf's CBR8 Review No:18 |

“We Tell Ourselves Stories in Order to Live”-Joan Didion

In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom by Yeonmi Park and Maryanne Vollers

January 4, 2016 by expandingbookshelf 4 Comments

When I was in college, I remember taking an international politics class. It was an Intro class, populated by a lot of students who heard it was a skate class. We ended up talking about North Korea one day, and one waste of valuable mass stood up to proclaim that if he were a North Korean, hewouldn’t be taking any of “ this Kim Jong Whatever’s shit.” When our professor (I hope trying to amp up our fremdschämen, and as a slight tangent, seriously God bless the German language) asked this oxygen destroyer what he would do to survive in […]

1/4/2016 expandingbookshelf's CBR8 Review No:2 |

yesknopemaybe on The Emerald Circus is multi-faceted but disappointsI literally LOL'd at "Emily Dickinson being abducted by an alien who looks like a leek". This sounds like a book I would not like...
yesknopemaybe on How I Learned to Accept my HangoverOoh, this sounds like a fun read. Great review!
yesknopemaybe on Now We’ve Got Vlad BloodEXCELLENT review title. Welcome to CBR and thank you for making me laugh with a pun :)
yesknopemaybe on Prejudice Against PrideOh no, that sucks that you didn't enjoy this. I liked it a bit more than you did (it's on my list to review), but...
yesknopemaybe on A good starting point for RipperologistsHa! I didn't know these things were bundled under the term Ripperology. I think I've mostly only read fiction inspired by Jack the Ripper instead...