Series introduces ‘all walks of life’ of Joseon period

When professor emeritus Kim Hung-gyu was asked to select and compile classic Korean stories for a book series, the first thing he wanted to do was introduce the kind of stories that are “page-turners.”“Many say pre-modern Korea was a Confucian society,” Kim, a longtime researcher of traditional Korea literature, told The Korea Herald. “And that is not incorrect. But the pre-modern Korea cannot be solely defined as ‘Confucian.’ It was very much a complex and diverse society and people felt all ki

Dec. 2, 2013

Korean-Chinese wins top literary translation prize

Korean-Chinese scholar Kim Hak-cheol (Jin Hezhe) arrived in Seoul in 2001 at age 28 without knowing much about the country.Now 41, Kim is an associate professor teaching Korean literature at Harbin Institute of Technology in Weihai, China. Kim, who worked as a journalist in China for seven years before studying comparative literature at Seoul National University, is a third-generation Korean-Chinese born in Yanbian, a Korean autonomous prefecture in Jilin Province, China. On Wednesday, Kim recei

Nov. 28, 2013

Mike Tyson merciless with himself as he seeks redemption

Back in Mike Tyson’s heyday, it was a badge of honor for many boxers to simply survive past the first round in the same ring as Tyson, the self-described “animal” and “monster” of American sports.But now I’ve got those palookas beat. I went the distance ― all 580 pages ― with Tyson’s violence-, drug- and sex-filled memoir, a masterpiece of depravity and confessional honesty titled “Undisputed Truth.”In 1986, at age 20, the New York City-born, onetime petty criminal became the youngest-ever heavy

Nov. 28, 2013

Youngster tries to find his missing parents in Voigt’s novel

Mister Max: The Book of Lost ThingsBy Cynthia Voigtillustrated by Iacapo Bruno (Knopf for Young Readers)Readers who wish their families were more interesting will be hooked, as I was, on Cynthia Voigt’s “Mister Max: The Book of Lost Things,” the first of a planned three-book series featuring an inventive and endearing boy named Max.Max’s parents are actors, and their lives are unpredictable. The drama only increases when the family gets an invitation to create a theater company for the maharajah

Nov. 28, 2013

‘Collision Low Crossers’ recounts a year with the N.Y. Jets

Collision Low Crossers: A Year Inside the Turbulent World of NFL FootballBy Nicholas Dawidoff(Little, Brown and Co.)First, to be fair: “Collision Low Crossers,” Nicholas Dawidoff’s chronicling of a season with the New York Jets, is excellent stuff. The author spent 2011 embedded with Rex Ryan’s team, and his doggedness and observational skills produce an insider’s look that brings to mind Roy Blount’s classic ode to the 1974 Pittsburgh Steelers, “About Three Bricks Shy of a Load.”It’s good.Bette

Nov. 28, 2013

World’s most expensive book sells for $14m: Sotheby’s

NEW YORK (AFP) ― The first book printed in what is today the United States of America sold for more than $14 million at auction in New York Tuesday, Sotheby’s said, becoming the world’s most expensive book.The translation of Biblical psalms “The Bay Psalm Book” was printed by Puritan settlers in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1640 and was sold at a one-lot auction by Sotheby’s.Bidding opened at $6 million and closed just minutes later at a premium price of $14.165 million, a Sotheby’s spokesman sai

Nov. 27, 2013

McBride wins National Book Award

NEW YORK (AP) ― James McBride’s “The Good Lord Bird,” the comic and terrifying adventures of a disguised black child caught up in John Brown’s abolitionist crusade, was the winner Wednesday night of the National Book Award for fiction.George Packer’s brutal examination of the modern class wars, “The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America,” won for nonfiction during a dinner ceremony at Cipriani Wall Street in downtown Manhattan. Cynthia Kadohata’s “The Thing About Luck” won for young peo

Nov. 21, 2013

40 years after ‘The Great Santini,’ Conroy pens a nonfiction sequel

In his 1976 novel, “The Great Santini,” Pat Conroy spilled all the beans that a good son is never supposed to spill: He wrote about his brutal father, his cowed mother, his frightened and abused siblings, and his own defiant and terrorized young self ― all thinly disguised, of course, as fiction.Like Bull Meecham in the novel, Donald Conroy really was a Marine fighter pilot, really did beat and terrorize his wife and kids, really did drink to excess, really did swagger around and call himself “T

Nov. 21, 2013

Mental hospital looms large in Lee Smith’s ‘Guests on Earth’

It’s the spring of 1937 when Evalina Toussaint, the narrator of “Guests On Earth,” first catches sight of Zelda Fitzgerald, wearing black tights and ballet slippers and smoking a cigarette, on the grounds of Highland Hospital in Asheville, North Carolina.By then, Zelda had been married for 16 years to F. Scott Fitzgerald, who was so infatuated with the Montgomery belle when they first met that he wrote the same line to her over and over: “I used to wonder why they kept Princesses in towers.” Nev

Nov. 21, 2013

Korean sijo in English

The Crane in the Clouds: Shijo: Korean Classical Poems in the Vernacular, By Lee Sung-il(HOMA & SEKEY BOOKS)Scholar Lee Sung-il recently published a book of more than 100 Korean classical poems, known as “sijo,” in a Korean-English bilingual edition. “Sijo is a uniquely Korean form of poetic composition,” writes Lee, Professor Emeritus at Yonsei University in Seoul, in the book. “Neither composing nor reading a sijo required any rigorous training. Simply stating what one felt at a given moment i

Nov. 21, 2013

Jane Austen rebooted; hold the zombies

LongbournBy Jo Baker(Alfred A. Knopf)Looking at the ever-growing list of contemporary fiction presuming to improve on Jane Austen (with or without zombies), readers may well wonder why they can’t leave the poor author alone. Happily, Jo Baker’s “Longbourn” is no mere riff but a fully imagined rejoinder to “Pride and Prejudice” that casts a sharp working-class eye on the aristocratic antics of Elizabeth Bennet, Mr. Darcy and their friends.The Bennets’ housemaid Sarah is Baker’s heroine, and she s

Nov. 21, 2013

‘My Life’ serves as an appetizer

Several years ago, a cookbook editor friend called asking my advice on whether she should publish Jacques Pepin’s autobiography. Pepin is one of my heroes in food, I told her, but I’d pass on the book ― all chef biographies tend to follow the same story arc, there’s not a lot new to be said.Wisely she ignored me, and though “The Apprentice” turned out just as I predicted plot-wise, it was one of the bestselling cookbooks of the year. I learned two lessons from that incident: I’m a lot better off

Nov. 14, 2013

Remembering Nora Ephron in two new collections

In her poignant 2010 essay “What I Will Miss,” which appears on the last page of a new omnibus, “The Most of Nora Ephron” (Alfred A. Knopf.), the author listed 31 items ― bacon, Paris and “the concept of waffles,” among them. There’s one thing she left out, I would venture to guess: writing.Though it was kept secret from all but her immediate circle, Ephron knew she was terminally ill with leukemia for six years before her death in 2012. If anything, this increased her productivity. According to

Nov. 14, 2013

‘Star Wars’ trilogy frame-by-frame

Star Wars: FramesSelected by George Lucas(Abrams, NY)Who hasn’t in their lifetime wanted to study a moment in a film, to pause the action and survey what is going on without fear that the hold suddenly will end?For fans of George Lucas’ “Star Wars” saga, that moment has finally come with “Star Wars: Frames.” It is all six of the “Star Wars” trilogy frame-by-frame.In 2011, “Frames” was issued in a very limited edition of six volumes, and came in a hard case adorned with a Darth Vader medallion. I

Nov. 14, 2013

Hunting for WWII MIAs in ‘Vanished’

Vanished: The Sixty-Year Search for the Missing Men of World War IIBy Wil S. Hylton (Riverhead)The official story was that the war in the Pacific claimed Jimmie Doyle on Sept. 1, 1944, when Japanese antiaircraft fire brought down his B-24 Liberator during a bombing mission over the tiny Palau archipelago. Neither the plane nor a single member of the 11-man crew was ever found. But there was always a second, darker story, and it haunted Jimmie’s son, Tommy, for most of his life.Tommy’s uncles bel

Nov. 14, 2013

Korea through the pages

Only a few years ago, major bookstores in Seoul and other regions spared only a tiny space for the “books on Korea” section. Things have changed. Booksellers are steadily expanding their sections to meet the demand from foreign readers deeply interested in the country. “Since hallyu ― namely K-pop like Psy’s ‘Gangnam Style’ ― took the world by storm, we are seeing a growing interest (by foreigners) in learning Korean and purchasing Korean language books,” said an official from Kyobo Book Center,

Nov. 8, 2013