Name: Dear Leader
ISBN: 9781476766560

Dear Leader

In this rare insider's view into contemporary North Korea, a high-ranking counterintelligence agent describes his life as a former poet laureate to Kim Jong-il and his breathtaking escape to freedom. "The General will now enter the room." Everyone turns to stone. Not moving my head, I direct my eyes to a point halfway up the archway where Kim Jong-il's face will soon appear. As North Korea's State Poet Laureate, Jang Jin-sung led a charmed life. With food provisions (even as the country suffered through its great famine), a travel pass, access to strictly censored information, and audiences with Kim Jong-il himself, his life in Pyongyang seemed safe and secure. But this privileged existence was about to be shattered. When a strictly forbidden magazine he lent to a friend goes missing, Jang Jin-sung must flee for his life. Never before has a member of the elite described the inner workings of this totalitarian state and its propaganda machine. An astonishing expose told through the heart-stopping story of Jang Jin-sung's escape to South Korea, Dear Leaderis a rare and unprecedented insight into the world's most secretive and repressive regime.

What Hacker News says

underseacablesNov 2023

I recommend the book "Dear Leader" by Jang Jin-sung. A member of the elite, he escaped North Korea and his story is deeply moving.

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randycupertinoSep 2021

Oh boy, you're gonna release the Kraken here.

Nonfiction that reads like a thriller is my favorite genre.

The last book that truly surprised me for how good it was and had been sitting unread in my queue for a while because the descriptions didn't give it justice was Empty Mansions: Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune by Bill Dedman. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Empty_Mansions

It's basically like rise and fall of Sackler family 1.0 in dynastic wealth and all crazy things that happen to the next generations. Her dad was a mining baron who created the US' largest superfund site and bought himself a Montana Senate seat and then it gets more wild from there. Unlike the Sacklers, the daughter who does seem to have arrested development re: emotional maturity- she played with dolls and ordered customized artisanal dollhouses from Japan for 500k and up into her 80s - did have a very kind heart and gave large gifts to her staff, her relatives, friends, even the guy who came in to repair the TV in her hotel room got a $40k tip. At the end there is a giant fight over multiple versions of the will, allegations of elder abuse by both Doctors Hospital in NYC and her nurse, CPA and attorney and pursuit by the IRS for unpaid gift taxes of millions of dollars.

She lived such a long life that you basically get a tour through American history throughout the book because it starts in the Gilded Age and she lives to be 105 years old! Even at the end of the book the main character who seems easy to write off as a batty old rich lady sort of earns your respect because she doesn't let the hospital push her around too much and stands her ground to many predatory family members and other sharks circling for her estate and largess.

There are some tie ins with modern tech wealth as well- a few of the purchasers of her assets including her Stradivarius violin for $2.5 million is one of the original microsoft guys!

Def check out John Carreyrou's book about Theranos, Bad Blood if you haven't already. That's imo the GOAT of this genre.

The Smartest Guys in the Room about the rise and fall of Enron is AWESOME and truly outrageous, as is Nobody would Listen by Harry Markopolos is about the Bernie Maddof ponzi scheme.

Another long read but REALLY GOOD was The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich which has a sloooooow start (there are a few chapters off the bat about philosophy and the origins of various schools of political theory etc) but once the Beer Hall Putsch happens it really takes off. It was written by William Shirer, an American journalist who lived in Germany and stayed through from the end of WW1 through WWII.

Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin by Timothy Snyder was horrific reading and just gruesomely sad but also incredibly well researched and fascinating. I liked it so much I then when on an Ann Applebaum kick of Iron Curtain, Gulag and Red Famine, all of which were very good. If you were going to pick one of hers, I'd do Gulag.

John Kraukauer's Into Thin Air and Under the Banner of Heaven are excellent, as is Crisis in the Red Zone about the origins and spread of ebola in the Sierra Leon.

edit: Oh! Also Midnight in Chernobyl was amazing, especially great if you listen to it before or after watching the HBO show. It's a fantastic read even if you don't watch the show and I think is what kicked off my interest above in life in the Soviet bloc.

Red Notice by Bill Browder details his experience as a global investor during the economic transition and rise of the oligarchs in Russia under Putin and details so much of the corruption and fraud of the current regime. It was written in 2014 after Browder's partner was tortured and murdered and brought about the Magnitsky Act. All the more relevant today with Navalny's recent revelations and very good background for what is happening in Russia now.

Re: tech co books, I'd say STAY AWAY from Chaos Monkeys by Antonio Garcia Martinez - was awful and the author is just totally unlikeable douchebag. He's not particularly insightful and the whole book was poorly written, sparsely edited bloviating.

Dear Leader by Jang Jin-sung about his life as a Pyongyang party elite, defectation and escape from North Korea was fantastic, thrilling and actually read like a real life spy novel. Some of the portions where he gets close to the border and as he survives on the lam in the Chinese border adjacent countryside while being hunted are... heart pounding.

Nothing to Envy by Barbara Demick is also about life in North Korea but focuses less on the party elite and more on the suffering of the general population. Heart-wrenching, horrific, well-researched and depraved.

And the Band Played on by Randy Shilts about the origins and spread of HIV & AIDs is another fantastically written and educational medical themed nonfiction about the development of the AIDS epidemic and the world spread and US and world research responses. Several infuriating portions especially the disinformation campaigns by the blood bank industry and lobbyists once the supply was tainted with the virus.

Ugh... I have so many more, but this should get you started. Have fun and don't forget book reports are due in 5 weeks so get cracking :P

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astebbinDec 2017

If that is what you believe, I would encourage you to check out these two books on the subject [0][1]. Both are engrossing reads, and paint a damning picture of the regime from different perspectives.

I have taken a strong amateur interest in North Korea for years, and the full body of press, reporting, and firsthand accounts I have read would support the comparison to Nazi Germany.

[0] https://www.amazon.com/Without-You-There-No-Undercover/dp/03... [1] https://www.amazon.com/Dear-Leader-Escape-North-Korea/dp/147...

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