Book Review Compilation

It's been some time since I wrote my last review, and I blame the A-levels and the busyness of life in Korea for such a crime. It's been an experience between heaven and hell for my reading life, because I could borrow from so many books in the public libraries, books which were ALL Korean. But then, I needed to increase my proficiency in Korean, so off I went.

최병구 - 외교이야기
This was a book that I bought from a bookstore. The reason I why I bought it was I wanted to be enlightened about the career which I hoped to take: diplomacy. It wasn't exactly a phenomenal experience, but I learnt a lot, rather boringly, how diplomats worked(all those conferences, summits, embassy work and so on) and how important the selection of words was for diplomats. It also introduced me to many great people in the world of diplomacy, such as Zhou Enlai, about whom I plan to read in the near future. I must say that it was a little too nationalistic(praising hanryu and such) for my taste, but I guess it's inevitable given he is a public servant.

박노자 - 박노자의 만감일기
This was interesting. The author to begin with was interesting; a Russian who changed his nationality to Korean. The book is a collection of his blog posts which mainly talk about the Korean politics. He is very very left, and although I am not sure whether this is a good thing for me, I think I became left too. He changed how I viewd capitalism, democracy and socialism, and led me to think that Socialist Revolution had a good cause. He gave me insight into the Korean politics, how it is literally controlled by Samsung and the like, demonizing them. Although I'm not sure whether I entirely agree with his rhetoric, I certainly find him fascinating.

Leander Kahney - Inside Steve's Brain
Unfortunately this was in Korean too, but I needed some good topics to write about in my SAT essay, so I picked up this book. I thought that it was a balanced approach to Job's personality(maybe slightly on the favourable side) and told me how his perfectionism, ability to change his personality as the situation demands and his hunger for the control of the system led Apple to rise above the others. But somehow I cannot escape my first impression of him, when I watched him give a graduation speech at Stanford, which I thought was rather fake. I just can't find him "charismatic"... but maybe I'm wrong. I guess there's a reason why the workers in Apple all fear and respect him, as the book says(or is the book exaggerating?).

Niccolo Machiavelli - The Prince

Often I came across the some books which referred to Machiavellian ideas, attitudes etc. and I had went on reading without knowing exactly what it meant. So it came to be that I read this famous book of political science in the sleeping trains of India.

I was surprised to find that the book was so thin, and was even more so when I found the letters in it were huge. The book is a gift from Machiavelli to a certain lord of the Medici family - I forgot the exact name - and in it Machiavelli advises him what he should do to emerge as a successful prince, or ruler.

As said in the introduction of the book, Machiavelli is deeply pessimistic of human nature. For instance, he argues that it is better to be feared than to be loved because there is no obligation to continue loving the ruler. Also, he had more reasonable advices which I somewhat related to the politics of today; Machiavelli repeatedly stresses that although the ruler should be feared, he should never be hated, as hatred will cause the fall of a prince.

There was a lot to digest in the short book. Most of the ideas were radical and rather barbaric, but reasonable nonetheless.

Jorges Luis Borges - Ficciones

After the merciless rejections from the Ivies, my vanity had crumbled to dust. I looked out for books which explained for meaning of life(maybe a slight exaggeration but true nonetheless) and I found Borges.

The book is not a novel, but a compilation of short stories that he had written; very short, in fact, that some were only 4 sides long. However, Borges showed that he was the master of succinct writing by making them so packed and structured. Indeed, I feel like I've read 15 books by just reading this.

At first, I didn't know what on earth he was talking about, his topics being so abstract. However, when I read the words with the utmost concentration that the stories of Borges deserved, I found myself wonderfully entertained when he talked about various philosophical questions in a playful and narrative way.

Let me just pick one from the stories which were all interesting. The "Library of Babel" was staged in a library which was (supposedly) infinite; it contained information about everything in the world, as the library had books which had all possible combination of words. However, in the end, one realises that this Library, which definitely does contained answers to everything, is as good as nothing, as although there are answers, there will also be refuting arguments in other books.

The book mentioned Schopenhauer a lot; maybe I'll read his works next time

Robert Lacey - Ford: The Men and the Machine

This was a biography of not just Henry Ford, but of the Ford dynasty till the late 1980s. The book starts off from Henry Ford I's childhood and finishes with the fall of Lee Iacocca, the former president of the Ford Motor Company, and there are fascinating stories between these two incidents; how the legendary Model T came into being, the spectacular achievements of the Fords like the Rouge and the Renaissance Center etc.

However, the most interesting stories were those of personalities and conflicts between them. The book shows how Henry Ford I's intention of making life better for the people change little by little over the years to focused on achieving his personal interests, not necessarily monetary wise, but over things like anti-semitism(the book talked about how Henry's anti-semitic propaganda could have moulded Hitler) and making himself famous. He was a genius in some ways(obviously shown in his creation of the moving production line) but a fool in many ways(his obstinacy over the Model T, the Peace Ship etc.).

The life of Edsel Ford, Henry Ford I's son, was pretty much overshadowed by Henry's dominance over him. The stories of Henry Ford II, Edsel's son, are much more interesting; how he revives the Ford Motor Company and releases the company into the public, how he marries 3 wives, how he gets rid of Lee Iacocca simply because "he doesn't like him" etc. Henry Ford II also had something of a dual personality like his grandfather; he treated the waiters and maids like Dukes and Duchesses while he screamed obscenities when he was drunk.

One aspect of the book which interested me especially was how a single person could change the fate of something so big as the Ford Motor company; Henry Ford I and his grandson, Ernest Breech and Lee Iacocca. It made me think that doing business and managing the companies wouldn't be such a bad idea after all, especially when those people got paid so well!

Michael L. Brown - Whatever Happened to the Power of God?

Scavenging my father's bookshelves again, I tried to find a book which would explain Christianity with less emphasis on the Bible and more on secular ideas. I wanted to know how Christians should explain things like homosexuality, the contradictions in Christianity etc.

As it turned out, the book was solidly founded on the Bible, and the author was pretty much a hard line Christian - which wasn't what I was looking for. However, some accounts of the working of God and various testimonies were indeed convincing, for example how John Wesley was able to attract thousands of people to listen to his preaching. Also, by constantly referring to the Bible, it proved the integrity of the Bible while justifying his arguments very convincingly.

The book laments the decline of the contemporary Church and Christians, and mentions the "real" revivals some time back. The book admonished the Christians to be disciplined, and concentrate only on God. Which is true really; either you should be a die hard Christian, or not at all. But I have yet to read what skeptics think about Jesus.

Charles Dickens - David Copperfield

I've always wanted to read at least one book by Charles Dickens, given his fame, and at every attempt, I never progressed more than 50 pages. However, this time, I managed with sheer determination to read 800 pages of tiny letters and complex eloquence which Charles Dickens is famous for, I believe.

The book is, apparently, Charles Dickens' "favourite child"; their initials, DC and CD, is somewhat similar. The book is also more or less a biography of Dickens, where he put some of his childhood experiences into the novel. The basic plot is, a boy grows into a man, marries a rather fragile lady called Dora, grieves at her death, becomes a respected author, and marries a childhood friend called Agnes. Happy ending.

After finishing the book, I was left much in doubt as to why one should read novels. Yes, David Copperfield was interesting, it had a lovely story, wonderfully laid out and conveyed, with hints of humour here and there. But it was too time consuming to read, and feel that I haven't "gained" as much as I would have if I had read something else. Did it teach me how to live a life? All it told me was to live inside a world of limited number of acquaintances(which might be a good thing considering so much relationships are so shallow nowadays) and to check one's impulses when one falls in love. It's not that I haven't learnt anything useful; it wasn't "efficient".

I think I'll stay away from novels for now, and concentrate on non-fictions to develop my thinking.

Nicky Gumbel - ALPHA Questions of Life

I came across this book as a chance; I had left my David Copperfield at school on Friday, and faced a weekend without a book to read, so I went to my father's bookcase and searched for something to read. This book happened to have the most fashionable cover.

The contents of the book isn't as grand as the title suggests, as it covers just the basics of Christianity. Most of the things I read I knew, and too often I was reading cliches; nonetheless, I read about some interesting anecdotes of various miracles and work of God, which somewhat convinced me of God's existence.

Short book, and nothing much to say, really. But its references to various Christian authours, like C.S.Lewis, urges me to pick up Christian books which I am not bothered at the moment to read.

Lee Kwan Yew - The Singapore Story

I must say that I am very proud of the fact that I have just finished the thickest book I have ever read: The Singapore Story. It is the biography of the famous former Prime Minister of Singapore, Lee Kwan Yew. My parents(who had pushed me to read this book for ages) and I expected that the book would show me how to become a successful person like him; but as a toiled through the book's pages, what I found was something different. The book is a biography more of Singapore than Lee; for most of the book, he explains how Singapore had developed to its current state.

The daunting length of the book has made me forget much of what I read in it. However, it did manage to leave some impressions on me. Lee, as a politician, had met innumerable people, and for nearly everyone, he described what that person was like, with very fitting adjectives. He impressed me on this, as I consider myself very bad when it comes to judging people's characters. Unfortunately, I forgot how he acquired this skill. Also, he struck me as being less politically correct compared to western authours, which showed when he supported corporal punishment and Deng Xiaoping; the book showed me how different the world could be viewed by different people, and that a virtue supported by one culture didn't necessarily have the support of other cultures.

I've learnt a lot from Lee's description of his neighbouring countries. Although I had a vague knowledge about their history, Lee proved that I knew hardly anything. I learnt that the communist threat in Asia, which came to me as distant and unimportant to me during school history lessons, was very much real back then; Singapore could have easily ended up as being a communist country. Also, I've learnt about the tenuous China-Taiwan-US relationship. I had thought that Taiwan was an independent country; in fact, China becomes very sensitive when other countries regard Taiwan as an independent nation. All in all, I feel enlightened about the modern history of Asia.

Of course, there's plenty more to write about this monstrously thick book, but at the moment, I want my mind to be free from Singapore for some time.

이진희 - 해협: 한 재일 사학자의 반세기

Most of the books in the Korean Church bookshelf are in poor condition. While I was looking for a book that was in a better condition, I came across an autobiography of a Korean historian who had lived most of his life in Japan. For some time, I've felt the need to approach Korean history as I do to English history in my A-level courses, so this book looked like a good start.

He was born in Gimhae but moved to Japan during WW2. In Japan, while he taught in Korean schools, he studied Korean archaelogy, and went to become a professor in various universities in Japan. His main motivation in his life were to preserve a national identity for the Koreans living in Japan and use archaeology to correct any wrong historical theory between Korea and Japan.

The book gave me an insight to the life of an intellectual. It isn't an attractive life to pursue; it doesn't make you into a millionaire or a celebrity. The life of an intellectual only makes sense if you have a strong sense of duty and responsibility to achieve something, and studying and researching is the way of achieving that. At first, I was skeptical about how interesting a life of an historian/archaeologist could be, but as I read on, I saw how he used his profession to try correct the flawed history regarding Korea in Japanese textbooks, and I came to think that such life was one worth living.

The book also gave me a first hand account of the Cold War. Before, I had thought that socialism/communism was the obvious evil, and that only the poor and the uneducated supported it. However, the author was a committed socialist, as were many of his fellow intellectuals, and they all supported North Korea after WW2 until by the 1970s they realized how Kim Il-Sung had perverted the ideals of socialism. Also, although I was aware of the dictatorship and terror in South Korea before 1980s, I didn't know that the situation was on par with that of North Korea. The two Korean governments were almost equally ruthless, and it was only recently that South Korea became more democratic and safe.

Although this book is hardly famous, it taught me a great deal. This book inspires me to read as much as possible, regardless of the fame of the author; all books teach me something.