Read this Book: Escaping North Korea

I know I'm on a KOREA-KICK these days, but this is a darn good book, no matter your interests. It's called ESCAPING NORTH KOREA... and I finished it today!

Mike Kim writes about his experiences helping North Korean refugees near the border of North Korea and China. He gave up his life in the U.S. to spend four years helping North Koreans escape, get health care, and rehabilitate.

It is such an amazing book. I cried several times reading it. The stories North Koreans tll are horrifying and heartbreaking. Topics include human trafficking, drugs, gulags (North Korean prisons), and extreme poverty. You won't believe what you're reading. If you don't know much about the North Korean regime or Kim Jong Il, it will also be an interesting read. How the government controls people will blow you away!

I think the book is also very timely since we just saw the release of two U.S. journalists from a North Korean jail. Laura Ling and Euna Lee were detained for allegedly crossing into North Korea illegally... until President Clinton flew to North Korea and asked for their release. The two journalists really haven't talked about their ordeal in prison, but this book may give some insight to what they experienced. They probably didn't endure the beatings and torture that so many others had been dealt, but with a food shortage across the country and a dislike for American Imperialism, I'm sure their experience was less than comfortable. Laura Ling said that in prison, she was fed rocks in her rice. In the book, author Mike Kim said rice is often mixed with grass to make food go farther.

If you want to see the interview that sparked my interest in this book, you can find it on the Daily Show (of all places!):

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart	Mon - Thurs 11p / 10c
Mike Kim
http://www.thedailyshow.com/
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A Good Read: Escape by Carolyn Jessop

I've been reading a lot more these days now that I work part-time at a library, and I'm really in love with this book called Escape.

I can't put it down. In fact, I don't want to go to work today because it's going to interrupt my reading time.

It's the true-life story of a woman named Carolyn Jessop who left the FLDS, the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. She was born into a polygamist family and forced to marry a man in his 50s when she turned 18. She had eight children in 15 years, and finally when their leader, Warren Jeffs (who was sentenced to 10 years in prison November 2007), started talking about the apocalypse, she escaped.

It's so interesting... she recounts years of abuse and scandal within the FLDS community, including marrying off teen girls to men in their 50s, 60s, and even 90s. Some men had dozens of wives. The former prophet, Rulon Jeffs, had 75.

It is so amazing. Even Jim couldn't stop reading it the other day... and then I had to yank back the book.

Carolyn has been all over the media since 2007, and you can even read an excerpt from her book, thanks to Oprah. Click here. The book is a popular one within the library system, but it's worth the wait if you decide to place it on hold.

Desdinova tagged me with a book meme...

Here were my instructions:

Just grab the book nearest your computer, find page 123, then find the fifth sentence down. Type that sentence and the next three on you blog. Have fun.

I sound like a perv, but here goes:

"One who looks like an Eastern slave in her golden nudity, a fantasy-slave girl. It nauseates her and she bites herself, leaving tooth marks in her arm which are still visible when she gets dressed and goes home. Victoria Theatre is small, chanderliered and velvet-covered, but nothing can detract from the fact that it's a second-rate theatre set up in the colony to appease the expatriate community. The humidity breeds a mustard-smelling fungus on the heavy drapes and the padded seats and makes tuning the instruments a frustratingly daunting feat."


--The first line is funny, huh? The book is Breaking the Tongue, and it's about the fall of Singapore to the Japanese in WWII... so I'm really not reading porn.

By the way, what is a meme? What does that stand for? Blogger illiterate, here.

Thanks Desdinova! Good fun~