Our Crazy World pt1: Escape from Camp 14

Hi there, I realise I said I was going to start this mini series yesterday but the internet and cable in my region was down yesterday so I couldn't get online, also I was hung-over.

So part 1 in this mini series starts with a heavy one. It is the gut wrenching story of this guy named Shin (he changed his name at one point and he's referred to by his first name) who was born in Camp 14, a North Korean prison camp in the mountainous regions. He was born the second son of two adults who were given the "priviledge" of mating. He grew up in a grueling life, surviving on corn mash and cabbage, and the occasional rat. The living conditions of the people within this camp were absolutely horrible and the guards treated the prisoners like dirt that wasn't even human. Executions are a normal thing.

This book is an eye opener. Everything you thought you knew about North Korea pales in comparison to the reality of the place. The vast majority of the country is starving, not just inmates. The nation is a prison in itself. Roughly 150,000 people are interred within a dozen prison camps, each much larger than anything built by the Nazis in the 1930s-40s. These prison camps were built in the 1970s and still exist today. The majority of people in major cities have electricity for about 4 hours a day. The government for a while encouraged the populace to eat only 2 meals a day to conserve food. The real motivating factor for Shin's breakout was that he heard about the food on the outside and was starvingly hungry.

This book kept me glued to it because of the story of Shin's horrible life. It made me feel sick to my stomach but I couldn't stop reading it and actually made me feel sick to my stomach, I started losing my appetite and couldn't wait for him to get free.

I suggest everyone read Escape From Camp 14, but be warned it is heavy and hard to stomach.

But seriously, read it, then go support the plethora of groups trying to liberate the starving people of this nation.

-Horace

A Mini Series

Good Evening,

I had a good recently. My idea is to have a themed mini-series of reviews. This idea came to me while reading my books recently, I realised they all have a sort of similarity. They're all about different views of our world these days.

So starting this weekend I will be beginning a 4-part mini-series titled "Our Crazy World" in which I will give four points of view from four books reviews, each point being a view of our crazy world, either how we got here or where we have gotten.

The books in order are:

Escape From Camp 14

The Story of Che Guevara

Radio Congo

Long Walk to Freedom

Expect to see Escape From Camp 14 this weekend (most likely Sunday).

Also,

I am nearly finished reading Venice: A New History. I will type up the review of it and post it after we finish this mini-series.

Keep tuned.

-Horace

Imperator deponitur

Hey book lovers, how is life?

So I recently finished reading The Emperor by Ryszard Capuscinski (probably butchered that but it's Polish and I am not) which explores accounts of the final decades of imperial rule in Ethiopia (and Eritrea which was Ethiopian at the time) in the 1960s and 1970s and the final collapse and immediate aftermath of the downfall.

In his book Ryszard gets ferried around (or claims to) Addis Ababa, the capitol city of Ethiopia, to speak to people hiding in the city who used to work in the emperor's palace mainly as bureaucrats. Much of the book is made of witness accounts by anonymous sources, since Ethiopia was a very dangerous place at the time. Surprisingly even though the nation was starving and imperial rule was not at all effective or efficient, the vast majority of the interviewees are super nostalgic for their past as palace servants and officials that they think the bad things were good. If that statement makes sense.

Unfortunately for this book it does seem that Ryszard employed his author's discretion to the narratives of his interviews because you find them incredibly articulate almost like practiced speeches that it feels like the author is punping his own artistry into the stories to make them better. Which may not be a bad thing.

On the plus side, the way the book was set up gave a real neat before-and-after perspective to the situation (at the time) in Ethiopia as the interviewees are recounting before and during the fall of emperor Haile Selassie, and then Ryszard is giving his account of his experiences travelling through Addis Ababa following the collapse of the empire. Basically it was bad before, although no tinted by nostalgia, and it was bad after.

This book did give me a great look into a genre of history that I didn't get in my public education and gave me some ideas for electives for when I go back to school in 2015, which means I am going to be so bogged down with classes if I really do take all the classes I want to.

Overall The Emperor wasn't my favorite read of the year, not even my favorite history read of the year, had some real drag to it, some grinding, boring stuff to it, but that could be seen as a necessary evil in order to fully portray the situation of imperial Ethiopia. Either way I didn't enjoy that aspect specifically.

As with all books I would recommend it because our history lessons fail to teach us anything about Africa other than Egypt's pharaohs an that slaves came from Africa, it is definitely the neglected continent in history circles.

Coming up soon will be my review of Venice: a new history, which so far is a great interesting account of the history of Venice, and by extension much of Europe.

Please let me know what you are reading and give me ideas of what to read and review next.

Keep reading,

Horace

New place to buy and new purchases

So today I went to downtown Barrie for a bit, decided to take a gander in a local bookstore down there called Bell, Book & Candle, on Dunlop St E. Found they have a lot of fictionand some philosophy hidden in the back I think I'm going to end up reading from.

After the BB&C I took a trip up to Georgian Mall to the Coles store there and since I already have bookmarks in 7 books here right now, I decided I would have a gander through what is available for the future of the Z13 Book Club. Unfortunately for my visa balance they were having a promotional sale in which they were handing out vouchers where if you bought a card you could win a percentage rebate on your purchase. How could I say no? I always have more books than I could ever hope to read.

I now own 2 new books you can expect to see in the lineup: History's Lost Treasures (Eric Chaline) and Dead Sea Scrolls: their history and myths revealed (John DeSalvo Ph.D.)

I expect to see Dead Sea Scrolls reviewed after The Che Guevara Story

Keep tuned,

Horace

Un-Think... with a hint of blink

Hi everyone, sorry for the time in between post but I have only just finished reading Unthink by Erik Wahl. Took me a while because I had a few busy nights mixed into my week where I couldn't get  much reading done, but here it is now!

So Unthink is about rediscovering your creative genius, as the cover tells it. That is very accurate, more specifically the author argues that when we are children we are very young but as we grow up and get educated to enter the workforce we are made into a gear in a machine, essentially, taking our focus away from our creative side. Erik argues, and I agree, that we must bring out our creative side, our individualism, to get ahead in this world, to stand out against the thousands of other drones who would happily take our place.

In reading Unthink I eventually started to feel, especially in one middle-chapter, that Erik Wahl has been influenced by Malcolm Gladwell, who is one of my favorite authors. This feeling was eventually confirmed by Erik when he directly mentioned the book Blink by Malcolm Gladwell.

Overall Unthink is a great book with great insight and some great quotes from some great people. I recommend this book to anybody who's trying to get ahead in this world.

I also recommend Blink by Malcolm Gladwell (which is a note I left on the last page of my copy of Unthink) or any of Malcolm Gladwell's books for that matter.

Enjoy,

Horace