Meet the Other Phone. Protection built in.

Meet the Other Phone.
Protection built in.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

What we're reading

Find your new favourite book or recommend one on our Book forum.

Excellent book about North Korea

19 replies

MaitreKarlsson · 20/03/2012 13:08

Just wanted to recommend "Nothing to Envy" by Barbara Demick. Happened to pick it up in a book shop & have been glued to it. Didn't know much about North Korea beforehand but it is truly staggering, and fascinating. A real insight into life in a dictatorship.

OP posts:
OddBoots · 21/03/2012 08:13

I finished this book on Monday and as you say, it was a real insight. Then by chance a friend linked to this news story too. Absolutely horrific what is going on right now not just in history.

nappymaestro · 21/03/2012 08:15

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

EightiesChick · 21/03/2012 08:35

Thanks for the recommendation. I also read the article OddBoots linked to at the weekend and found it horrifying. Will put it on my reading list.

MaitreKarlsson · 23/03/2012 12:24

Thanks for the link, I hadn't seen it. Does anyone have any other similar non-fiction recommendations? Not necessarily about North Korea!

OP posts:
MsNorbury · 25/03/2012 21:18

Loved it top. Read it a couple of years ago ? Pre kindle anyway

NotInMyDay · 16/04/2012 17:57

I've also just finished this. I found it a fabulous read but humbling.

bunjies · 16/04/2012 18:02

Would also recommend it as a very good introduction to the sheer horror of what's going on over there.

maples · 16/04/2012 18:08

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

MrsJohnDeere · 16/04/2012 18:09

One of the most interesting books I've ever read. Couldn't it it down, or quite believe what I was reading. I recommend it to everyone.

AnonymousBird · 03/05/2012 10:12

Ditto what Mrs JD said - our book club just read this and we were all absolutely Shock. and Sad. and bowled over by it.

Everyone should read this book.

maples · 03/05/2012 11:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

notyummy · 03/05/2012 11:21

Yes it's amazing - have recommended to all the ladies on the S and B thread I pop into! On other non-fiction I would also recommend Tim Butcher - Blood River and Chasing the Devil - both about Africa and hugely readable. The other one that had me glued was 'Homicide - A Year on the Killing Streets' by David Simon, who later went on to write The Wire. He spent a year following the homicide unit in Baltimore. Some of it is difficult stuff to read, but it is fascinating.

Imperfectionist · 16/05/2012 13:55

Thanks for the recommendation, I've added it to my amazon basket - great price too.

I recommend: I Didn't Do It For You: How the World Used and Abused a Small African Nation by Michela Wrong

I found I Didn't Do It For You to be a real page turner. Some very interesting history on Britain's colonial conduct - if you didn't know, the UK fought major battles in Eritrea against the Italians in WWII, then ran the country for a decade afterwards before asset stripping it - literally dismantling factories and shipping them around the corner to Kenya - then 'giving' it Emperer Haili Selassie in Ethiopia in the 1960s, after which it fought a 30 year war of independence. It's now a brutal dictatorship with horrendous human rights abuses nicknamed 'the North Korea of Africa'.

Michela Wrong was a well-regarded journalist: Reuters, Economist, FT, who now writes non-fiction books about Africa. She's also written good ones on corruption in Kenya (It's Our Turn To Eat) and a fascinating colonial-to modern-day, history of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in the Congo).

From Amazon: "If you thought Eritrea was some exotic flower you heard mentioned on a gardening programme this book will tell you something different. It tells the tale of a small group of Africans so despised and trampled by successive foreign occupations that they fought back and after 30 years of war, they became a nation. It is an astounding story packed with tales of the worst ? and the best ? of human behaviour." Richard Dowden, President of the Royal African Society

franke · 17/05/2012 14:01

I've just ordered the book. I've also just spent a harrowing few hours reading about Shin Dong-Hyuk, the young man from the link above. Horrific and harrowing don't even begin to cover it. I'm interested to see how he gets on - he effectively has to learn how to be a human being. He's done amazingly well in the few years he's been out but is still clearly very conflicted. I hope he's getting the help he needs and deserves.

FireOverBabylon · 17/05/2012 14:18

Nothing like as harrowing but I'm reading Looking for Transwonderland: Travels in Nigeria, by Noo Saro-Wiwa. She's Ken Saro-Wiwa's daughter, brought up in the UK and travelling in Nigeria as an adult. It's really warmly written, and it reads easily and she has an interesting tourist / native Nigerian perspective.

tethersend · 17/05/2012 14:24

Amazing book.

Am now reading Escape from camp 14, which is brutal but fascinating.

hackmum · 16/06/2012 15:43

I'm reading Nothing to Envy now on the OP's recommendation. I agree, it's a very good book, will be recommending it to other people.

NoraHelmer · 28/06/2012 12:32

I'm about half way through and am shocked by the awfulness of life in North Korea.

Windsock · 05/08/2012 17:40

Gah. Old news. We all rea that years ago ;)

New posts on this thread. Refresh page