Most Popular
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Contentious grain bill put directly to plenary meeting for vote
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Yoon's approval rating plunges to all-time low
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Will tug-of-war between doctors, government end soon?
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Climate impacts set to cut 2050 global GDP by nearly a fifth
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Trilateral talks acknowledge ‘serious’ slumps of won, yen
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[Graphic News] More Koreans say they plan long-distance trips this year
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[KH Explains] Hyundai's full hybrid edge to pay off amid slow transition to pure EVs
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North Korea removes streetlights along cross-border roads with South
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Russia's denial of entry of S. Korean national unrelated to bilateral ties: Seoul official
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Farming households dip below 1m for first time in 2023
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A glimpse of the private Susan Sontag
As Consciousness is Harnessed to Flesh: Journals and Notebooks, 1964-1980 By Susan Sontag, edited by David Rieff(Farrar, Straus and Giroux)In the three years since “Reborn,” the first volume of Susan Sontag’s journals and notebooks, was published, at least three more books about the literary titan have appeared, notably Sigrid Nunez’s 2011 memoir, “Sempre Susan.”Although Nunez’s reminiscences ― centering primarily on the brief time she lived with Sontag and her son, David Rieff, in the mid-’70s
April 20, 2012
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Book series offers Korean, Western classics
Following the huge success of its first four volumes back in January, “Olje Classics,”a book series consisting of Korean and Western classics recently published four more texts. Provided by non-profit corporation Olje, the eight-volume series’ newly released books include “Apologia Socrates” by Plato; “Utopia” by Thomas More; “Hangeul Maengja,” writings of Mencius translated into Korean by scholar Lee Eul-ho (1910-1998); “Cheongseong Jabgi,” a collection of various writings written by Joseon sch
April 20, 2012
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Rachel Maddow dings Congress as ineffective in her first book
Rising from their seats en masse, the liberal faithful at Beverly Hills’ Saban Theatre greeted Rachel Maddow like parishioners welcoming a mega-church pastor.Cellphone cameras flashed like fireworks. Lusty, and perhaps a few lustful, cheers cascaded from the Art Deco mezzanine.Bill Maher, the interviewer at Tuesday night’s Writers Bloc public chat, turned to Maddow as they took the sold-out theater’s stage. How much of that do you think was for you, and how much was for me? Maher joked.No offens
April 20, 2012
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Im and Hong head to Cannes film fest
Director Im Sang-soo’s drama “Taste of Money,” and director Hong Sang-soo’s “In Another Country,” which stars French actress Isabelle Huppert, are in the running for a prize at the upcoming 65th Cannes Film Festival.This marks director Hong’s eighth appearance at Cannes, and his third time being invited to the festival’s competition section ― after his 2004 drama “Woman is the Future of Man” and the 2010 drama “Hahaha.” The 2010 film won the Prix Un Certain Regard at the festival that year. Dire
April 20, 2012
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British Library buys Europe’s oldest book
LONDON (AFP) ― The St. Cuthbert gospel, Europe’s oldest intact book, will remain in Britain after a record-breaking fundraising campaign by the British Library, it said Tuesday.Half of the 9 million pounds ($14.2 million) required to purchase the 7th century copy of the Gospel of St. John came from the The National Heritage Memorial Fund with charitable foundations, trusts and the public making up the rest. It is the largest ever campaign mounted by the library and ensures the manuscript, which
April 17, 2012
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Kids’ bestseller to be translated into English
“Leafie, A Hen Into the Wild,” a best-selling Korean children’s novel by Hwang Sun-mi, will be translated into English and published in the United States by Penguin Classics, the author’s management agency said Monday.KL Management, which handles the copyright sales of the novel, said Penguin Classics decided on Thursday to publish the English version of the novel in the United States. The novel has been sold in nine countries including France, Poland and Japan. The Polish version of the novel w
April 16, 2012
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A Finnish thriller stars a Jewish cop
Nights of AweBy Harri Nykanen, translated from the Finnish by Kristian London (Bitter Lemon)The protagonist of Harri Nykanen’s “Nights of Awe” is named Ariel Kafka, and he’s one of two Jewish police officers in Helsinki.Now, Finland’s entire Jewish population is no bigger than a couple of good-sized Long Island bar mitzvahs, so it’s no shock that Jews would be somewhat exotic figures there. Nykanen has Kafka react with head-shaking amusement to well-meaning questions about Jews, and the deadpan
April 13, 2012
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Young girl creates a ‘Land of Decoration’
The Land of DecorationBy Grace McCleen (Henry Holt)According to her website, author Grace McCleen grew up in a fundamentalist Christian household in Britain. Encouraged by teachers on a path she had not set her sights on, a university education, she attended Oxford, only to lose her faith and fragile sense of self. Judging by her semiautobiographical first novel, “The Land of Decoration,” she has been saved by writing, if not restored to salvation.The book’s title comes from the Book of Ezekiel,
April 13, 2012
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Scholar looks into works of Joseon’s female writers
The Poetic World of Classic Korean Women Writers, By Lee Hai-soon, Translated by Hur Won-jae (Ewha Womans University Press)They were prohibited from public education and had to work against a male-dominated world to leave their literary legacy.Scholar Lee Hai-soon’s English-language book, “The Poetic World of Classic Korean Women Writers,” features 13 female poets from Korea’s Joseon era ― the time period when Chinese was regarded as the common written language in East Asia. She dedicates a chap
April 13, 2012
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Novel on Impressionists paints them extra blue
Christopher Moore’s new novel blends diligently researched art history smoothly with his fevered, fiendish imagination. So smoothly, in fact, that you must never, ever give this book to a docent who gives museum tours.But do give “Sacre Bleu” to anyone who likes tales of the Impressionists ― especially comic, down-and-dirty ones.Moore starts from real points ― the prevalence of blue in the Impressionists’ paintings, and unexplained questions about the death of Vincent Van Gogh. He then spins a s
April 13, 2012
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Young writers explore online community
NEW YORK ― It started with a story for a magazine. In 2008, during a trip to Japan, New Yorker staff writer Dana Goodyear decided to write about cellphone novels, a phenomenon ― involving young women writing largely for young women, posting fiction from their phones to media-sharing websites ― that was then shaking up Japanese publishing.“It seemed like a great way to explore the literary culture,” she remembers, although by the time she got home, the parameters had shifted, with the effects of
April 12, 2012
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William Boyd to pen new Bond adventure
LONDON (AFP) ― Author William Boyd is to follow in the footsteps of fellow novelists Kingsley Amis and Sebastian Faulks by penning a new adventure for 007 superspy James Bond, it was revealed on Thursday.Bond-creator Ian Fleming died in 1964 after writing 14 novels in the series, but other authors have since kept the saga alive and the franchise has now sold over 100 million books.Boyd, who won the prestigious Whitbread Book Award in 1981 for his novel “A Good Man in Africa,” did not reveal any
April 12, 2012
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Korea’s best-selling children’s novel wins Polish award
A translated version of the best-selling Korean children’s novel “Leafie, a Hen into the Wild” has won a literary honor in Poland, according to Korea Literature Translation Institute.The book, about the adventures of a mother hen who tries to escape the coop with her duckling son, has been named the “best book of spring 2012” (Najlepsza ksika na wiosne 2012) by Granice.pl, a renowned literary organization in Poland. According to Korea Literature Translation Institute, it is the first time a Kore
April 11, 2012
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‘Hunger Games’ again on list of challenged books
NEW YORK (AP) ― The more popular “The Hunger Games’’ trilogy becomes, the more reasons some parents and educators have found to question whether it belongs on library shelves.For the second year in a row, Suzanne Collins’ work was among the most “challenged’’ books, as reported Sunday by the American Library Association’s Office for Intellectual Freedom. The association defines a challenge as “a formal, written complaint filed with a library or school requesting that a book or other material be
April 9, 2012
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Following poem, Israel bars entry to Guenter Grass
JERUSALEM (AP) ― Israel on Sunday declared Guenter Grass persona non grata, deepening a spat with the Nobel-winning author over a poem that deeply criticized the Jewish state and suggested it was as much a danger as Iran.The dispute with Grass, who only late in life admitted to a Nazi past, has drawn new attention to strains in Germany’s complicated relationship with the Jewish state ― and also focused unwelcome light on Israel’s own secretive nuclear program.In a poem called “What Must Be Said’
April 9, 2012
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Korea to support exports of children’s books
The Culture Ministry plans to push ahead with a policy to support the export of books for young readers to build momentum for a Korean wave in publishing, its minister said Friday.In a meeting with local publishers of children’s books, Minister Choe Kwang-shik asked the publishers to play a role as the main driver of hallyu in the publishing field and promised the government would seek positive ways to support the export of children’s books.According to the ministry, children’s books have the mo
April 8, 2012
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Blacks among Nazis
Half-Blood BluesBy Esi Edugyan (Picador) “Half-Blood Blues” takes its title from a jazz disc that doesn’t exist, but you wish you could hear anyway. It was, according to Canadian novelist Esi Edugyan’s version of 20th century European history, secretly recorded in Paris just before the Nazis triumphantly roared through the French capital in June 1940. Two black Baltimore expatriates, Charles “Chip” Jones and Sid Griffiths, played drums and bass, respectively. On lead trumpet was a gifted 20-year
April 6, 2012
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When kids kill: 3 novels explore a parent’s worst nightmare
There is a hierarchy of personal catastrophe, an informal but definitive ranking of all the terrible things that can happen, moving through categories that might be labeled “Worst Thing” to “Next-Worst Thing” to “Next-to-Next Worst Thing” and on down the line.At the upper end of that list, most people would probably agree, is losing a child. The world’s normal order ― parents predeceasing children ― is upended.But what happens if the child is indeed lost, but not gone? When the child, that is, t
April 6, 2012
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Scholars’ foray to discover ‘non-killing’ culture in Korea
Nonkilling Korea: Six Culture ExplorationEdited by Glenn D. Paige and Ahn Chung-siSeoul National University PressTo those used to studying the turbulent modern Korean history, which consists of war, division and an ongoing ideological dispute, the term “non-killing Korea” may not ring a bell at first.But the latest book published by the Seoul National University, “Nonkilling Korea: Six Culture Exploration” is what the unfamiliar term is all about: It seeks to discover “nonkilling” or non-violent
April 6, 2012
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From happiness to unimaginable despair
Burn Down the GroundBy Kambri Crews (Villard)Kambri Crews’ debut memoir, “Burn Down the Ground,” places her firmly in the company of family-dysfunction specialists such as Augusten Burroughs, Jeannette Walls and, especially, Mary Karr, whose 1995 best-seller “The Liars’ Club” set the bar for tales of dirt-poor Southeast Texas upbringings.The biting humor of “Burn Down the Ground,” along with the author’s smooth, natural storytelling, reflect her adult years ― she’s been an actress, owns her own
April 6, 2012