Kim Jong Il
Categories: In the News , Nonfiction
Saddam Hussein. Osama bin Laden. Neither inspires the personal interest that Kim Jong Il, North Korea's evil "Dear Leader" does.
Some think he's crazy, but this may be an act. It could just be his haircut. It makes sense to appear crazy if you have nuclear weapons, because no sane world leader would actually detonate one.
Here are some books in the library that discuss Kim Jong Il, and what may happen after the 65-year-old leader meets his maker:
Rogue Regime : Kim Jong Il and the Looming Threat of North Korea, by Jasper Becker. Jay Freeman of Booklist describes this as a "frightening and depressing account of both the domestic and foreign policies of a society and government." Other books in the library's collection include:- Korea After Kim Jong-Il, by Marcus Noland.
- Great Leader Kim Jong, by Jin Il Tak
- A Paean of Great love : Kim Jong IL and the People, by Takashi Nada (This one might be especially odd and interesting because it's published in Pyongyang.)
Americans can't go to North Korea, usually, but there's a plethora of engrossing travelogs from people from other countries on the Web. My favorite is the three-part journal of Italian chef Ermanno Ferlanis who taught Kim Jong Il's cooks to make pizza. Weirdly, the three sections aren't linked to one another: here are the second and third sections.
Did he really kidnap two South Korean filmmakers, feed them grass, and force them to make films for him until they escaped? Yes, apparently. An ardent movie fan, Kim wrote his own book, On the Art of the Cinema, republished in 2001 from the 1973 printing.
You can follow day-to-day news on North Korea from their online Newspaper, The Korean Times. You can also follow his very hilarous fake online journal, which I wish would be updated now and then.
