Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea Paperback – September 21, 2010

Have you ever wondered what life was like for the ordinary people of North Korea? We hear a lot about their politics and military, but very little about what life is really like there for people like you and me. This book takes a close look at a half dozen lives of ordinary North Korean citizens. The author interviews the (now) defectors and relays their stories to us as she peppers them with bits of Korean landscape and history. It's all compelling, but maddening at the same time.Demick's sole purpose of writing this book is to tell us in the masses what every day life is like in North Korea. She does exactly that in a clear, concise narrative of her subjects' lives over the course of a 15 year time period that includes the reign of Kim Il Sung and that of his son, Kim Jong Il. She is simply telling the stories of these families without any judgment at all. Just the facts are presented. As a reader though, you will judge. You will feel pity, you will be upset. I wanted to scream. But I hope the masses read it anyway.Many of the stories in this book take place in the 1990s. The 1990s! (I'm still shocked) This was a time when I was living in Chicago and living my version of the dream. It still astounds me that while I was living it up, people were living like this and not questioning it. In my lifetime. On our planet. It disgusts me.I knew nothing about North Korea before this book, other than what the news tells us. Lives there are horrific and people there are brainwashed into thinking their conditions are better than anyone else's in the world. Speaking of the world, there is no contact with it for a regular North Korean citizen. TVs and radios have all had their channel selectors welded to make only the government run channels available to residents. There is almost no electricity, very little running water and famine. Widespread famine. People do not have the luxury of meals, let alone access to the necessary food they need to live. You wouldn't believe what people there have had to do just to eat something.Adults are dying, children are dying.Demick thoughtfully interviews people of different ages, romances and education. Things that are normal to everyone, right? But, they happen in a world that is very much like Nazi Germany. With many, many rules. The maddening part of this is that many of the people of North Korea still worship "The Great Leader" or "The Marshal," as they're known, anyway. They don't know any different. They're told how evil the rest of the world is. They're constantly reminded of how poor the rest of the world is. They're even forced to keep and clean portraits of these men in their homes. (The government checks to make sure they're up and clean). At the least, their lives are a case study for brainwashing. The Great Leader forces them to work, without pay, because it's their "duty" to the Worker's party (that many of them can't be a member of anyway). He makes them wear certain types of clothes or hairstyles to make their "class" obvious to others. Class is a big thing to the North Korean leaders, and they use it to play against people constantly.It's an insane story, one that you might see in an apocalyptic movie. It is heartbreaking. It is maddening. But read it anyway.If there is any kind of happy ending to this book it's that the people Demick interviewed for it got out. Somehow they started thinking for themselves. They saw the hypocrisy. It took a lot of courage, bravery and sometimes quick thinking to literally save their lives and get out. Oh, and corrupt government "party workers" too. This might be the one time corruption may be helpful - hunger pains win over party loyalty I guess.The sad part for me is that this is all still going on for people who can't change (or don't see a reason to) their situation.I can't recommend this book enough. It's for anyone who is interested in North Korean life, international sociology, international politics or communism. This is the first book I've read on the subject, but it will not be the last. I appreciate how well this book has been written. Demick, an award winning writer AND reporter who now leads the Beijing Bureau of the Los Angeles Times, is an intelligent, gifted writer. She writes for us - the ordinary people who want to learn more. It's one of the best books I've read in 2013. But, warning: the story is horrific.

"Nothing to Envy" is an outstanding, highly illuminating book about North Korea. One of the very best.It is well written and engaging. It covers multiple time periods, because she beautifully captures the life experiences of entire families of North Koreans, thereby capture a fascinating sense of history, along with more contemporary life there.Most importantly, Demick's book draws on multiple sources, mostly refugees, which makes it far stronger than most books about North Korea. Most books either focus on one refugee (or one family), while others focus on facts rather than personal stories, often based on unknown sources (where it is impossible to separate fact from opinion, and high quality information from low.) In a country where propaganda is the norm and where people can literally lose their lives by criticizing the government, it is critical to understand the quality of sources used, and it is usually impossible to share the exact source of the information, due to the understandable need to guard anonymity. By getting independent confirmation of key points using multiple sources, Demick is able to triangulate her story, and to provide much stronger support than most books written on this very complicated country.Perhaps most impressively, Demick manages to get more comprehensive coverage of life in North Korea than most sources by discussing the experiences of refugees from many different social classes, which is critically important in such an explicitly hierarchical country. Some books pay far too little attention to those critical social differences (for example, "North Korea Confidential" published in 2015 focuses primarily on the emerging upper middle class market class - see my Amazon review of that book here: https://www.amazon.com/review/R1CDBYCL1O95CV/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm), which Demick illustrates can be the difference between getting sent to a labor / death camp for the rest of your life along with three generations of your relatives, or not.I would recommend reading "Nothing to Envy" first, followed by "Only Beautiful Please", by John Everard, in 2012. The latter is a wonderfully rich book written by a former British Ambassador to North Korea. He is open about the fact that, as ambassador, he was primarily exposed to the lives of elite North Koreans, but he still brings a fascinating perspective to the table that compliments the stories told by Demick in many ways (and he is also a marvelous writer). Between the two books, one is provided with a reasonably comprehensive portrait of a fairly inscrutable country, so I highly recommend reading both. My Amazon review of Everard's also-wonderful book can be found here:https://www.amazon.com/review/R2PYGPBYSUGLY6/ref=cm_cr_rdp_perm

There was nothing in this well written book by journalist Barbara Demick I hadn't heard or read through the news media in times past, but her account using North Korean defectors creates reality and warmth. We see through the eyes of those who suffered through this awful regime and it was heart warming to know that at least some of the abused population are escaping and creating new lives in the free world.Brain washing has always baffled me and the television coverage of an hysterical population grieving over the demise of their cruel and corrupt leader, the cold and menacing soldiers goose stepping at military parades, and the manic over the top female news readers delivering their propaganda has me shaking my head in disbelief.The stories in Nothing to Envy about ordinary people, throws some light on the subject, as fear of retribution governs their every move and statement and perhaps the grief and other displays of allegiance to their disreputable leader is all for show.Such sadness for those of us who live democratic countries but it is heartening that the population appears to be "waking up' and surely in such a highly tech savvy world these despots can not hold out much longer. One would hope this will be the case as the threat of the developing nuclear program has cause for great concern.Quite astonishing that the North Korean regime has not toppled ...or been toppled, before this. One can only hope the culprits can be brought to justice before long and forced to face the enormous crimes they have committed towards their own people.A highly recommended read.