The Tears of My Soul. Kim Hyun-hee. William Morrow and Company, Inc., 1993.
This book is well worth reading primarily because it offers a glimpse into the training and operational procedures of North Korea’s intelligence services. I’m not sure if the descriptions of training are credible or not, but have not found information to […]

A Corpse in the Koryo. James Church. Thomas Dunne Books, 2006.
This is a mystery set mostly in Pyongyang and Manpo, North Korea. The the main character, Inspector O, is an investigator in the Investigations Department of the Internal Security Bureau. As the title indicates there is a murder in the Koryo Hotel and […]

This list of books on North Korea includes my own favorites, as well as a few books recommended to me that I’ve not yet read but plan to. If you have any suggestions, please post them in a comment.

Kim Il-sung: The North Korea Leader, by Suh Dae-sook (1995)
Kim Il-song’s North Korea, by Helen-Louise Hunter […]

American Defector. Mark D. Treston. Victoria: Trafford Publishing, 2003.
The title of this book, as well as the brief description on the back cover, makes one wonder if it’s about Charles Jenkins or one of the other soldiers that defected to North Korea in the 1960s. But it is not; the author presents the book […]

Hamel’s Journal and a Description of the Kingdom of Korea, 1654-1666, Revised Edition. Hendrik Hamel. Translated by Jean-Paul Buys. Seoul Computer Press, 1998.
Hamel’s Journal is the story of Hendrik Hamel, the bookkeeper of the Dutch Ship Sperwer (‘Sparrow Hawk’ – now you know the origin of the blog of the same name), […]

Crisis on the Korean Peninsula: How to Deal with a Nuclear North Korea. Michael O’Hanlon and Mike Mochizuki. McGraw-Hill, 2003
In Crisis on the Korean Peninsula, O’Hanlon and Mochizuki layout a “grand deal” designed to diffuse not just the nuclear issue, but also the possibility of a conventional military confrontation and address human rights in […]

Offspring of Empire: The Koch’ang Kims and the Origins of Korean Capitalism 1876-1945. Carter J. Eckert. University of Washington Press, 1991, revised 1997.
Offspring of Empire uses the Koch’ang Kim family as representative example in order to make the point that modern Korean capitalism had its origins in the colonial era, rather that the pre-colonial […]

In my opinion, this book is at the top of the must reads for anyone who wants a well-grounded understanding of North Korea. If you want to understand the political history of the DPRK you must study Kim Il Sung rather than the system – Kim Il Sung was (and still is) the system.
Kim […]

Oberdorfer, Don. The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History, Revised and Updated. Indianapolis: Basic Books, 1997& 2001. 445 pages.
Oberdorfer’s The Two Koreas is a well-presented modern history of both North and South Korea, as the title indicates. It includes dozens of interesting quotes and insights Oberdorfer was able to […]

This is a shorter version of an earlier review. I have tried to be as objective as possible in presenting the key issues. If you study North Korea, it’s a good idea to read something by Kim Il-sung, and I suggest this book as it is representative of his collective works, is less lengthy […]