Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea by Barbara Demick
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Wow: great content, great narrator.
I have been avoiding reading North Korea books, even though the subject fascinates me, because I figure, who can know enough about the "Hermit Kingdom" in order to fill a book? Well, Demick's extensive interviews with defectors is able to tell the story of lives inside North Korea from the separation of Korea on to before the ascendancy of Kim Jong-un, in the twilight of Kim Jong-il's reign. Especially engrossing is the the North Korean famine, which lasted from 1994 to 1998 and killed an estimated 800,000 to 3,500,000 people. Also, life and means of traffickers and defectors that cross north into China or Mongolia even is fascinating. Other dimensions explored are families split between the two Koreas as well as ethnic Koreans living in China and Japanese-Koreans.
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