A River in Darkness
One Man's Escape from North Korea
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A River in Darkness
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Narrated by:
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Brian Nishii
About this listen
A New York Times bestseller and Amazon Charts Most Read and Most Sold book.
A Goodreads Choice Award nominee for Memoir & Autobiography.
The harrowing true story of one man’s life in - and subsequent escape from - North Korea, one of the world’s most brutal totalitarian regimes.
Half-Korean, half-Japanese, Masaji Ishikawa has spent his whole life feeling like a man without a country. This feeling only deepened when his family moved from Japan to North Korea when Ishikawa was just thirteen years old, and unwittingly became members of the lowest social caste. His father, himself a Korean national, was lured to the new Communist country by promises of abundant work, education for his children, and a higher station in society. But the reality of their new life was far from utopian.
In this memoir translated from the original Japanese, Ishikawa candidly recounts his tumultuous upbringing and the brutal thirty-six years he spent living under a crushing totalitarian regime, as well as the challenges he faced repatriating to Japan after barely escaping North Korea with his life. A River in Darkness is not only a shocking portrait of life inside the country but a testament to the dignity - and indomitable nature - of the human spirit.
©2000 by Masaji Ishikawa. (P)2017 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved. Translation © 2017 by Risa Kobayashi and Martin Brown.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Not Much New Here, but Courage and Hope to Spare
- By Gillian on 03-25-16
By: Sebastien Falletti, and others
-
Under the Same Sky
- From Starvation in North Korea to Salvation in America
- By: Joseph Kim, Stephan Talty
- Narrated by: Raymond Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 157
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 142
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 142
A searing story of starvation and survival in North Korea, followed by a dramatic escape, rescue by activists and Christian missionaries, and success in the United States thanks to newfound faith and courage.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Tugs at the heart strings
- By R3v13w3r on 07-15-15
By: Joseph Kim, and others
-
Tears of the Desert
- A Memoir of Survival in Darfur
- By: Halima Bashir, Damien Lewis
- Narrated by: Rosalyn Landor
- Length: 12 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 88
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 67
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 68
Halima Bashir was born into the Zaghawa tribe, whose customs have remained unchanged for centuries, in the remote western deserts of Sudan in the region of South Darfur. Halima's father named his daughter after the traditional medicine woman of the village, and she grew up in a happy and close-knit childhood environment. Her father became a wealthy man by his tribe's standards, so he could afford to send Halima to school and university. Halima went on to study medicine, and at 24 she returned to her tribe and began practicing as their first ever qualified doctor.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
A story that takes you there
- By Justicepirate on 05-22-17
By: Halima Bashir, and others
-
In Order to Live
- A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
- By: Yeonmi Park
- Narrated by: Eji Kim
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 5,980
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,265
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 5,260
In In Order to Live, Yeonmi Park shines a light not just into the darkest corners of life in North Korea, describing the deprivation and deception she endured and which millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, but also onto her own most painful and difficult memories. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship before they finally made their way to Seoul, South Korea - and to freedom.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Wow. What a story!
- By Jfm on 02-01-16
By: Yeonmi Park
-
After the Roundup
- Escape and Survival in Hitler’s France
- By: Joseph Weismann
- Narrated by: J. Clark Allison
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 39
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 37
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 36
On the nights of July 16 and 17, 1942, French police rounded up 11-year-old Joseph Weismann, his family, and 13,000 other Jews. After being held for five days in appalling conditions in the Vélodrome d'Hiver stadium, Joseph and his family were transported by cattle car to the Beaune-la-Rolande internment camp and brutally separated. A thousand children were left behind to wait for a later train. The French guards told the children that they would soon be reunited with their parents, but Joseph and his new friend, Joe Kogan, chose to risk everything in a daring escape attempt.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
A “must-listen” book
- By Jonathan R Scupin on 09-25-18
By: Joseph Weismann
-
The Lightless Sky
- A Twelve-Year-Old Refugee's Harrowing Escape from Afghanistan and His Extraordinary Journey Across Half the World
- By: Gulwali Passarlay
- Narrated by: Assaf Cohen, Susan Duerden
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 48
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 42
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 43
In 2006, after his father was killed, Gulwali Passarlay was caught between the Taliban, who wanted to recruit him, and the Americans, who wanted to use him. To protect her son, Gulwali's mother sent him away. The search for safety would lead the 12-year-old across eight countries, from the mountains of Eastern Afghanistan through Iran and Europe to Britain. Over the course of 12 harrowing months, Gulwali endured imprisonment, hunger, cruelty, brutality, loneliness, and terror - and nearly drowned crossing the Mediterranean Sea.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
A Face for Refugees
- By Daryl on 12-10-16
-
A Thousand Miles to Freedom
- My Escape from North Korea
- By: Sebastien Falletti, Eunsun Kim
- Narrated by: Emily Woo Zeller
- Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,715
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,449
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,448
Eunsun Kim was born in North Korea, one of the most secretive and oppressive countries in the modern world. As a child, Eunsun loved her country...despite her school field trips to public executions, daily self-criticism sessions, and the increasing gnaw of hunger as the countrywide famine escalated. By the time she was 11 years old, Eunsun's father and grandparents had died of starvation, and Eunsun too was in danger of starving. Finally her mother decided to escape North Korea with Eunsun and her sister.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Not Much New Here, but Courage and Hope to Spare
- By Gillian on 03-25-16
By: Sebastien Falletti, and others
-
The Aquariums of Pyongyang
- By: Chol-hwan Kang, Pierre Rigoulot
- Narrated by: Stephen Park
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 284
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 246
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 247
Amid escalating nuclear tensions, Kim Jong-un and North Korea's other leaders have kept a tight grasp on their one-party state, quashing any nascent opposition movements and sending all suspected dissidents to its brutal concentration camps for "re-education". Kang Chol-Hwan is the first survivor of one of these camps to escape and tell his story to the world, documenting the extreme conditions in these gulags and providing a personal insight into life in North Korea.
-
4 out of 5 stars
-
Riveting!!
- By Iread on 11-12-20
By: Chol-hwan Kang, and others
-
Remember Us
- My Journey from the Shtetl Through the Holocaust
- By: Vic Shayne, Martin Small
- Narrated by: Peter Altschuler
- Length: 10 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 367
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 333
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 331
Remember Us is a look back at the lost world of the shtetl: a wise Zayde offering prophetic and profound words to his grandson, the rich experience of Shabbos, and the treasure of a loving family. All this is torn apart with the arrival of the Holocaust, beginning a crucible fraught with twists and turns so unpredictable and surprising that they defy any attempt to find reason within them. Through the eyes of 91-year-old Holocaust survivor Martin Small, we learn that these priceless memories that are too painful to remember are also too painful to forget.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
A Tragic and Rich Life, With Lessons For All
- By still reading on 03-17-16
By: Vic Shayne, and others
-
The Boy on the Wooden Box
- By: Leon Leyson, Marilyn J. Harran - contributor
- Narrated by: Danny Burstein
- Length: 4 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 781
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 681
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 682
This, the only memoir published by a former Schindler's List child, perfectly captures the innocence of a small boy who goes through the unthinkable. Most notable is the lack of rancour, the lack of venom, and the abundance of dignity in Mr Leyson's telling. The Boy on the Wooden Box is a legacy of hope, a memoir unlike anything you've ever read.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Schindler's List though a child's eyes
- By Jan on 10-16-13
By: Leon Leyson, and others
-
Stars Between the Sun and Moon
- One Woman's Life in North Korea and Escape to Freedom
- By: Lucia Jang, Susan McClelland
- Narrated by: Janet Song
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 211
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 196
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 196
Born in 1970s North Korea, Lucia Jang grew up in a typical household - her parents worked in the factories, and the family scraped by on rations. Nightly she bowed to her photo of Kim Il-Sung. It was the beginning of a chaotic period with a decade-long famine. Jang married an abusive man who sold their baby. She left him and went home to help her family by illegally crossing the river to China to trade goods. She was caught and imprisoned twice.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Fantastic story. Well read.
- By Jfm on 02-20-16
By: Lucia Jang, and others
-
Two Rings
- A Story of Love and War
- By: Millie Werber, Eve Keller
- Narrated by: Yelena Shmulenson, Eve Keller
- Length: 7 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 36
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 39
Trapped in Poland in 1941, like many Jews, Millie Werber went from the Radom Ghetto to slave labor in an armaments factory, survived Auschwitz, and toiled in a second factory until liberation came on April 1, 1945. She faced death many times but lived to marry a good man and fellow survivor. Meanwhile, she concealed a photograph in her closet and carried a secret in her heart.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
What a love story
- By Sbear on 11-19-18
By: Millie Werber, and others
-
Wild Swans
- Three Daughters of China
- By: Jung Chang
- Narrated by: Joy Osmanski
- Length: 22 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 1,967
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 1,732
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 1,736
Few books have had such an impact as Wild Swans: a popular best seller which has sold more than 13 million copies and a critically acclaimed history of China; a tragic tale of nightmarish cruelty and an uplifting story of bravery and survival.
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5 out of 5 stars
-
Accurate, moving and chilling
- By David on 12-15-12
By: Jung Chang
-
Kaffir Boy
- The True Story of a Black Youth’s Coming of Age in Apartheid South Africa
- By: Mark Mathabane
- Narrated by: Mark Mathabane
- Length: 18 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 409
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 347
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 357
Mark Mathabane was weaned on devastating poverty and schooled in the cruel streets of South Africa’s most desperate ghetto, where bloody gang wars and midnight police raids were his rites of passage. Like every other child born in the hopelessness of apartheid, he learned to measure his life in days, not years. Yet Mark Mathabane, armed only with the courage of his family and a hard-won education, raised himself up from the squalor and humiliation to win a scholarship to an American university.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
Tragic yet we'll written
- By ARM on 10-07-16
By: Mark Mathabane
-
Nothing to Envy
- Ordinary Lives in North Korea
- By: Barbara Demick
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 4,126
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,224
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,220
Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years - a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung and the unchallenged rise to power of his son, Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Taking us into a landscape never before seen, Demick brings to life what it means to be an average Korean citizen, living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today.
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4 out of 5 stars
-
The man who wants to be GOD
- By Gohar on 05-08-10
By: Barbara Demick
-
Slave
- By: Mende Nazar, Damien Lewis
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 183
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 154
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 156
Mende Nazer tells the story of her kidnap, at age 12, from an idyllic life with her family in a village in Sudan, and being sold into slavery. Trafficked to Europe and the London home of a diplomat, Nazer escaped - only to find she had to fight for asylum.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Heartbreaking dose of reality
- By Sarah on 09-02-09
By: Mende Nazar, and others
-
My Mother's Secret
- Based on a True Holocaust Story
- By: J. L. Witterick
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Wiley
- Length: 2 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 468
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 411
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 410
Franciszka and her daughter, Helena, are simple, ordinary people until 1939, when the Nazis invade their homeland. Providing shelter to Jews in Nazi-occupied Poland is a death sentence, but Franciszka and Helena do exactly that. In their tiny home in Sokal, they hide a Jewish family in a loft above their pigsty, a Jewish doctor with his wife and son in a makeshift cellar under the kitchen, and a defecting German soldier in the attic - each party completely unknown to the others.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
WONDERFUL!!!
- By Robyn Collins on 02-29-16
By: J. L. Witterick
-
Claiming My Place: Coming of Age in the Shadow of the Holocaust
- By: Planaria Price, Helen Reichmann West
- Narrated by: Ilyana Kadushin
- Length: 9 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 53
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 47
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 46
Meet Barbara Reichmann, once known as Gucia Gomolinska: smart, determined, independent, and steadfast in the face of injustice. A Jew growing up in predominantly Catholic Poland during the 1920s and ’30s, Gucia studies hard, makes friends, falls in love, and dreams of a bright future. Her world is turned upside down when Nazis invade Poland and establish the first Jewish ghetto of World War II in her town of Piotrko´w Trybunalski.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Amazing
- By Nordic Artisan on 07-09-18
By: Planaria Price, and others
-
To Live
- A Novel
- By: Yu Hua, Michael Berry
- Narrated by: David Shih
- Length: 8 hrs and 50 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 87
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 68
-
Story4.5 out of 5 stars 70
This searing novel, originally banned in China but later named one of that nation's most influential books, portrays one man's transformation from the spoiled son of a landlord to a kindhearted peasant. After squandering his family's fortune in gambling dens and brothels, the young, deeply penitent Fugui settles down to do the honest work of a farmer. Forced by the Nationalist Army to leave behind his family, he witnesses the horrors and privations of the Civil War, only to return years later to face a string of hardships brought on by the ravages of the Cultural Revolution.
-
5 out of 5 stars
-
Wow!
- By Phillip King on 05-30-18
By: Yu Hua, and others
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Dear Leader
- Poet, Spy, Escapee - A Look inside North Korea
- By: Jang Jin-sung
- Narrated by: Daniel York
- Length: 11 hrs and 43 mins
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,193
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,014
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 2,012
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.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding! A life-changing listen.
- By Gotta Tellya on 09-29-14
By: Jang Jin-sung
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North Korea Undercover
- Inside the World's Most Secret State
- By: John Sweeney
- Narrated by: Gildart Jackson
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 651
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 587
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 587
North Korea is like no other tyranny on Earth. Its citizens are told their home is the greatest nation in the world, and Big Brother is always watching. It is Orwell's 1984 made reality. Huge factories with no staff or electricity, hospitals with no patients, uniformed child soldiers, and the world-famous and eerily empty DMZ - the Demilitarized Zone, where North Korea ends and South Korea begins - are all framed by a relentless flow of regime propaganda from omnipresent loudspeakers. Free speech is an illusion: one word out of line, and the gulag awaits.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Highly listenable, humorous and enlightening
- By Kevin Stokes on 09-09-15
By: John Sweeney
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The Valley of Amazement
- By: Amy Tan
- Narrated by: Nancy Wu, Joyce Bean, Amy Tan
- Length: 24 hrs and 51 mins
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,968
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,543
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Story4 out of 5 stars 3,565
Shanghai, 1912. Violet Minturn is the privileged daughter of the American madam of the city's most exclusive courtesan house. But when the Ching dynasty is overturned, Violet is separated from her mother in a cruel act of chicanery and forced to become a "virgin courtesan." Half-Chinese and half-American, Violet grapples with her place in the worlds of East and West - until she is able to merge her two halves, empowering her to become a shrewd courtesan who excels in the business of seduction and illusion, though she still struggles to understand who she is.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Just could NOT get past the ugliness
- By Pamela J on 11-25-13
By: Amy Tan
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Escape from Camp 14
- One Man's Remarkable Odyssey from North Korea to Freedom in the West
- By: Blaine Harden
- Narrated by: Blaine Harden
- Length: 5 hrs and 44 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
North Korea is isolated and hungry, bankrupt and belligerent. It is also armed with nuclear weapons. Between 150,000 and 200,000 people are being held in its political prison camps, which have existed twice as long as Stalin's Soviet gulags and twelve times as long as the Nazi concentration camps. Very few born and raised in these camps have escaped. But Shin Donghyuk did. In Escape from Camp 14, acclaimed journalist Blaine Harden tells the story of Shin Dong-hyuk and through the lens of Shin's life unlocks the secrets of the world's most repressive totalitarian state.
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5 out of 5 stars
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heart breaking
- By The greatest human to ever live on 10-29-24
By: Blaine Harden
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The Hard Road Out
- One Woman’s Escape from North Korea
- By: Jihyun Park, Seh-Lynn Chai, Sarah Baldwin - translator
- Narrated by: Rosa Escoda
- Length: 6 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
North Korea is an open-air prison from which there is no escape. Only a handful of men and women have succeeded. Jihyun Park is one of these rare survivors. Twice she left the land of the ‘socialist miracle’ to flee famine and dictatorship. By the age of 29, she had already witnessed a lifetime of suffering. Family members had died of starvation; her brother was beaten nearly to death by soldiers. Even smiling and laughing was discouraged.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent
- By Monica Daigle on 08-15-24
By: Jihyun Park, and others
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The Girl with Seven Names
- A North Korean Defector’s Story
- By: Hyeonseo Lee, David John
- Narrated by: Josie Dunn
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 2,514
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 2,221
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Story5 out of 5 stars 2,206
As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal communist regime. Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life. Given the repression, poverty and starvation she witnessed surely her country could not be, as she had been told, 'the best on the planet'?
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3 out of 5 stars
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Did not like narrator
- By Linda H. Andreae on 10-09-19
By: Hyeonseo Lee, and others
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Dear Leader
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 2,193
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 2,014
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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.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Outstanding! A life-changing listen.
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 651
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 587
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North Korea is like no other tyranny on Earth. Its citizens are told their home is the greatest nation in the world, and Big Brother is always watching. It is Orwell's 1984 made reality. Huge factories with no staff or electricity, hospitals with no patients, uniformed child soldiers, and the world-famous and eerily empty DMZ - the Demilitarized Zone, where North Korea ends and South Korea begins - are all framed by a relentless flow of regime propaganda from omnipresent loudspeakers. Free speech is an illusion: one word out of line, and the gulag awaits.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Highly listenable, humorous and enlightening
- By Kevin Stokes on 09-09-15
By: John Sweeney
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The Valley of Amazement
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 3,968
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,543
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Story4 out of 5 stars 3,565
Shanghai, 1912. Violet Minturn is the privileged daughter of the American madam of the city's most exclusive courtesan house. But when the Ching dynasty is overturned, Violet is separated from her mother in a cruel act of chicanery and forced to become a "virgin courtesan." Half-Chinese and half-American, Violet grapples with her place in the worlds of East and West - until she is able to merge her two halves, empowering her to become a shrewd courtesan who excels in the business of seduction and illusion, though she still struggles to understand who she is.
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2 out of 5 stars
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Escape from Camp 14
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 43
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 43
North Korea is isolated and hungry, bankrupt and belligerent. It is also armed with nuclear weapons. Between 150,000 and 200,000 people are being held in its political prison camps, which have existed twice as long as Stalin's Soviet gulags and twelve times as long as the Nazi concentration camps. Very few born and raised in these camps have escaped. But Shin Donghyuk did. In Escape from Camp 14, acclaimed journalist Blaine Harden tells the story of Shin Dong-hyuk and through the lens of Shin's life unlocks the secrets of the world's most repressive totalitarian state.
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5 out of 5 stars
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heart breaking
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 44
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 38
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 38
North Korea is an open-air prison from which there is no escape. Only a handful of men and women have succeeded. Jihyun Park is one of these rare survivors. Twice she left the land of the ‘socialist miracle’ to flee famine and dictatorship. By the age of 29, she had already witnessed a lifetime of suffering. Family members had died of starvation; her brother was beaten nearly to death by soldiers. Even smiling and laughing was discouraged.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Excellent
- By Monica Daigle on 08-15-24
By: Jihyun Park, and others
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As a child growing up in North Korea, Hyeonseo Lee was one of millions trapped by a secretive and brutal communist regime. Her home on the border with China gave her some exposure to the world beyond the confines of the Hermit Kingdom and, as the famine of the 1990s struck, she began to wonder, question and realise that she had been brainwashed her entire life. Given the repression, poverty and starvation she witnessed surely her country could not be, as she had been told, 'the best on the planet'?
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3 out of 5 stars
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Did not like narrator
- By Linda H. Andreae on 10-09-19
By: Hyeonseo Lee, and others
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The Aquariums of Pyongyang
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- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 284
-
Performance5 out of 5 stars 246
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 247
Amid escalating nuclear tensions, Kim Jong-un and North Korea's other leaders have kept a tight grasp on their one-party state, quashing any nascent opposition movements and sending all suspected dissidents to its brutal concentration camps for "re-education". Kang Chol-Hwan is the first survivor of one of these camps to escape and tell his story to the world, documenting the extreme conditions in these gulags and providing a personal insight into life in North Korea.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Riveting!!
- By Iread on 11-12-20
By: Chol-hwan Kang, and others
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Love You Hard
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 90
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 81
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Story5 out of 5 stars 81
Abby Maslin shares an inspiring story of resilience and commitment in a deeply affecting new memoir. After her husband suffered a traumatic brain injury, the couple worked together as he recovered - and they learned to love again.
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5 out of 5 stars
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The Maslin Family
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And in the End
- The Last Days of the Beatles
- By: Ken McNab
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 144
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 129
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 130
Ken McNab's in-depth look at the Beatles' acrimonious final year is a detailed account of the breakup featuring the perspectives of all four band members and their roles. A must to add to the collection of Beatles fans, And in the End is full of fascinating information available for the first time. McNab reconstructs for the first time the seismic events of 1969, when the Beatles reached new highs of creativity and new lows of the internal strife that would destroy them.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Familiar ground but a good listen
- By Tad Davis on 08-30-20
By: Ken McNab
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Your Own Kind of Girl
- A Memoir
- By: Clare Bowditch
- Narrated by: Clare Bowditch
- Length: 11 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 216
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 182
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 182
Clare Bowditch has always had a knack for telling stories. Through her music and performing, this beloved Australian artist has touched hundreds of thousands of lives. But what of the stories she used to tell herself? That 'real life' begins only once you're thin or beautiful, that good things happen only to other people. Your Own Kind of Girl reveals a childhood punctuated by grief, anxiety and compulsion and tells how these forces shaped Clare's life for better and for worse. This is a heartbreaking, wise and at times playful memoir.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Simply marvelous! Her voice !!!
- By Anonymous User on 05-31-20
By: Clare Bowditch
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Test Gods
- Virgin Galactic and the Making of a Modern Astronaut
- By: Nicholas Schmidle
- Narrated by: Nicholas Schmidle
- Length: 9 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 99
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 86
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Story5 out of 5 stars 86
Working from exclusive inside reporting, New Yorker writer Nicholas Schmidle tells the remarkable story of the test pilots, engineers, and visionaries behind Virgin Galactic’s campaign to build a space tourism company. Schmidle follows a handful of characters - Mark Stucky, Virgin’s lead test pilot; Richard Branson, the eccentric billionaire funding the venture; Mike Moses, the grounded, unflappable president; Mike Alsbury, the test pilot killed in a fatal crash; and others - in pursuit of their collective goal: to make space tourism a reality.
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5 out of 5 stars
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accurate acount
- By Tikicarver on 06-19-21
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Hunt Them Down
- Pierce Hunt, Book 1
- By: Simon Gervais
- Narrated by: Bon Shaw
- Length: 8 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 3,348
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,055
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,046
Former Army Ranger Pierce Hunt is no stranger to violence. Fresh off a six-month suspension, he’s itching to hit a notorious Mexican drug cartel where it hurts, even if that means protecting crime boss Vicente Garcia, a witness in the case against sadistic cartel leader Valentina Mieles. But things spiral out of control when the cartel murders Garcia and kidnaps his granddaughter and an innocent bystander, Hunt’s own teenage daughter.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great start to a new series...
- By shelley on 01-02-19
By: Simon Gervais
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The Real North Korea
- Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia
- By: Andrei Lankov
- Narrated by: Steven Roy Grimsley
- Length: 10 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 600
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 526
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 525
Andrei Lankov has gone where few outsiders have ever been. A native of the former Soviet Union, he lived as an exchange student in North Korea in the 1980s. He has studied it for his entire career, using his fluency in Korean and personal contacts to build a rich, nuanced understanding. In The Real North Korea, Lankov substitutes cold, clear analysis for the overheated rhetoric surrounding this opaque police state.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Broad and nuanced account of North Korea
- By Neuron on 07-29-15
By: Andrei Lankov
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The Weight of Lies
- A Novel
- By: Emily Carpenter
- Narrated by: Kate Orsini
- Length: 11 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 2,337
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Performance4 out of 5 stars 2,125
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Story4 out of 5 stars 2,121
Reformed party girl Meg Ashley leads a life of privilege, thanks to a bestselling horror novel her mother wrote decades ago. But Meg knows that the glow of their very public life hides a darker reality of lies, manipulation, and the heartbreak of her own solitary childhood. Desperate to break free of her mother, Meg accepts a proposal to write a scandalous, tell-all memoir.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Wow. That was pretty bad.
- By Meg on 07-21-17
By: Emily Carpenter
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Into the Forest
- A Holocaust Story of Survival, Triumph, and Love
- By: Rebecca Frankel
- Narrated by: Natalie Pela
- Length: 11 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 289
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 251
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Story5 out of 5 stars 253
In the summer of 1942, the Rabinowitz family narrowly escaped the Nazi ghetto in their Polish town by fleeing to the forbidding Bialowieza Forest. They miraculously survived two years in the woods—through brutal winters, Typhus outbreaks, and merciless Nazi raids—until they were liberated by the Red Army in 1944. After the war, they trekked across the Alps into Italy, where they settled as refugees before eventually immigrating to the United States.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Great story with an added benefit
- By Scottsville Stu on 12-30-21
By: Rebecca Frankel
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The Nine
- The True Story of a Band of Women Who Survived the Worst of Nazi Germany
- By: Gwen Strauss
- Narrated by: Juliet Stevenson
- Length: 13 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 392
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 351
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Story5 out of 5 stars 348
The Nine follows the true story of the author’s great aunt Hélène Podliasky, who led a band of nine female resistance fighters as they escaped a German forced labor camp and made a 10-day journey across the front lines of World War II from Germany back to Paris. Drawing on incredible research, this powerful, heart-stopping narrative is a moving tribute to the power of humanity and friendship in the darkest of times.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Soooo good!
- By anne simpson on 09-28-21
By: Gwen Strauss
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Nothing to Envy
- Ordinary Lives in North Korea
- By: Barbara Demick
- Narrated by: Karen White
- Length: 12 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 4,126
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 3,224
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 3,220
Barbara Demick's Nothing to Envy follows the lives of six North Koreans over fifteen years - a chaotic period that saw the death of Kim Il-sung and the unchallenged rise to power of his son, Kim Jong-il, and the devastation of a far-ranging famine that killed one-fifth of the population. Taking us into a landscape never before seen, Demick brings to life what it means to be an average Korean citizen, living under the most repressive totalitarian regime today.
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4 out of 5 stars
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The man who wants to be GOD
- By Gohar on 05-08-10
By: Barbara Demick
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In Order to Live
- A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
- By: Yeonmi Park
- Narrated by: Eji Kim
- Length: 9 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 5,980
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 5,265
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Story5 out of 5 stars 5,260
In In Order to Live, Yeonmi Park shines a light not just into the darkest corners of life in North Korea, describing the deprivation and deception she endured and which millions of North Korean people continue to endure to this day, but also onto her own most painful and difficult memories. She tells with bravery and dignity for the first time the story of how she and her mother were betrayed and sold into sexual slavery in China and forced to suffer terrible psychological and physical hardship before they finally made their way to Seoul, South Korea - and to freedom.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wow. What a story!
- By Jfm on 02-01-16
By: Yeonmi Park
What listeners say about A River in Darkness
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- J. Manuel Elias
- 07-31-18
Cruel reality of humanity.
Read it none stop, as a father I can't even begin to imagine what it would be like to be in a situation like that. It's so sad. It served me to look at my life and remember that I have so much more than I deserve. I hope someday people that have gone through horrible things will be somehow compensated. recommended if you would like to get a lil perspective on life.
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6 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Carter Hooper
- 02-01-19
Riveting, Heartbreaking and Inspiring
When I rate this 5 stars, an "I Love It" box pops up. It should say "I'm 5-Star Horrified by This". Incredibly shocking to think people still have to un-live like this. What a story and what a man. Utmost respect for the author and his family. Read it and weep, though his unwavering hope for a better life is truly inspiring,
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2 people found this helpful
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Little Willow
- 08-08-18
Haunting and humbling
Whether your first book on an NK defector's life or like me the 12th it makes you want to weep for what you have and what they never did.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
- Cynthia R. Connolly
- 09-02-18
A River in Darkness
This was a sad book, a heart breaker. It makes you feel like you should do something but what. I feel so blessed to have the life I have.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Christopher
- 08-09-18
An amazing story of survival and family!
This book was full of gut wrenching moments and painful heartaches. Though everything this man went through was true you can't help but wish and wonder what life would be for him if he could have been with his family in Japan after escaping that dreadful place. Regardless I was relieved he and many others have escaped to freedom and can live their lives. This book really opened my eyes as to what goes on in North Korea then and even now. I have watched videos and read stories online, but nothing compared to Mr. Ishikawa's journey through hell and back. (Much respect to you Sir!)
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Willm
- 08-07-18
A Man's Tale of Hell on Earth
An extraordinary tale of a man's struggles in life. A hell on Earth. An unfortunate tale of how many struggle through life today.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- April
- 08-06-18
Truly horrifying.
Reminds you to appreciate the good things you have in life. Also to not trust Kim Jung Un!
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- David Lambert
- 10-09-18
Fantastic story
A very interesting look into the life of a person that has truly suffered. How the class system works in Japan and Korea. Snd how it brands a person for no reason at all but for where they are from.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Ma Asuncion Mercado
- 08-16-18
Can’t Stop
So riveting!
Its such a personal story on the NorthKorea no one knew about. Sad that such a situation may still exist.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Anonymous User
- 04-27-18
Overwhelming
The devastating cruelty of communist dictatorships is born by simple people. As a political refugee from communist Cuba I can relate to the anguish and desire to escape. I too left Cuba when I was 13. However I was lucky to leave with my family so the author's story is too me overwhelming.
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