#she is the master of immersive and captivating music that's fun at the same time

[jongace]

예린(YERIN) - 밤밤밤 (Bambambam)

[nanowrimo]

Read the YWP Novel Excerpt Contest Grand Prize Winner (13 and Under Age Group)!

In February, we challenged you to submit a 400-word excerpt from your NaNoWriMo novels. From over 650 fantastic entries, we chose two Grand Prize Winners and four Runners-Up. We hope you enjoy reading them as much as we did! (For more excerpts, check out this forum thread.)

"The City's Pawns” by Abigail C. — Grand Prize Winner (13 and under age group)

Edith popped a lollipop in her mouth and hopped down from the wall. The morning had been successful. No different than most pre-Games mornings, but it was always fun to slip past the wealthy.

Back in the slums, she wiped the kind smile from her face and walked back to the Garage. Even though Edith technically didn’t work for anyone, it was easier if people thought she did. Solos rarely worked out in The City and the last thing she wanted was attention.

Edith climbed in through the second-story window in the back and took out her notebook to jot down what she’d found. She would burn the page after committing it to memory, a necessary precaution since the information she stole could topple family lines. Even on Games week she made sure to leave no trace of what she knew.

Footsteps echoed in the stairwell. Edith stared at the page a moment longer then ripped it out and stuck it in the furnace vent. She climbed down from the window and stalked out into the alley. Anyone who saw her would think she had given whatever she -- supposedly -- stole to Madame Friedswell, and thieves would believe she didn’t have any valuables on her. She’d learned that trick from a master.

Edith kept the same pace until she reached the slums bordering the Trading Quarter. Most of the time there were stands selling completely useless items to the gullible immigrants, who aspired to be merchants but didn’t realize you had to be rich to live in the Quarter. But it was almost Games week. The sellers were out working their side jobs as criminals.

“Hey, miss! You shouldn’t wear those rings around here. Someone could steal them right off your fingers!” Edith glanced up at the speaker, a filthy old man sporting missing teeth and an acrid odour. The crook made to prove his point but she grabbed his hand and bent his fingers back as far as they would go without breaking. He grunted and tried to pull his hand away, but she pressed harder.

“Believe me, kind sir, I know. I’ve gone lengths to ensure that won’t happen,” Edith crooned. His eyes widened and he stopped fighting. She grinned and let go. “Now run along. I have work to do.”

She didn’t tell him about the trap his mutinous gang had set for him, poor old Farley Baxter.

Guest author judge Tashie Bhuiyan had this to say this about The City's Pawns:

"Reading this felt like reading something from a published novel. The worldbuilding was so easy to get into and really helped set the scene. It was so immersive and captivating, and the main character immediately drew me in!"

Abigail (Abby) C. loves reading, writing, music, and standing on top of hills with her face to the wind. While her friends at school say she reads and writes too much, her family and other friends say otherwise, so she’s not stopping anytime soon. Her favourite books to read always involve betrayals and major plot twists, to the dismay of book characters everywhere. She hopes to one day follow in her mom’s footsteps and become a published author.

[fyodorsuggestions]

A Beautiful Crime

@nikolaisuggestions a magician never reveals his secrets but I’m no magician and it’s no secret how much I adore you. 

Think of the circus and the Big Top inevitably comes to mind, the barkers shouting the attractions to a teeming crowd, the performers filtering in and out of the smaller tents. Think of the circus and you think of clowns in their greasepaint and sword swallowers with their dangerous pieces of steel. Think of the circus and you think of the ringleader with his whip and the lion tamer with their chair, you think of the magicians with their smirks and the trapeze artists flying through the air.

Think of the circus and you think of spectacle, grandiose and incredible. You might remember visiting as a child, when you were innocent and full of wonder, you might remember being a teenager moody but reluctantly entranced, as an adult who knows all the tricks but enjoys all the same. The circus is a beautiful, magical place and it’s no wonder he would make his living here.

“Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the greatest show unearthed!” the barker cries outside the tent and the magician readies his tricks. The people filter into the small tent, cramped if they’re being realistic, but no one ever is in a place like the circus. They can’t see that half the space is sectioned off for the magician to conceal his secrets, they don’t see me behind the curtain, violin propped under my chin with bow in hand.

They see nothing but what we let them see, me and my magician, my trickster. Every pantheon has its trickster, no? Every pantheon needs one to balance the scales, too austere and the balance crumbles away to nothing, power wanes and it’s simply too dull darling. I suppose it’s fortunate the trickster always goes best with the sky father, always a well matched pair when they find the time to play together. And we’ve found the time today, we’ve found a reason and we’ll use any excuse we can conjure.

“Are you ready to be dazzled? Confused and bemused?” Nikolai starts, jovial as ever, genial and welcoming. He’s a sight in his bright clothes, with his bright hair and dancing eyes, he’s a Joker come to life. He has the smile, the laugh, a subtle air of mania hanging about him like a miasma if all’s true. He is demented, deranged and dangerous. And beautiful, ever so beautiful.

“Here you have it, a pack of cards, nothing so special right?” he asks and I draw the bow across the strings, smiling as the music is piped through the tent, behind the audience, around them, above and below. His idea, a lovely one, immerse them in the illusion, create a new reality for them to play in to draw them into the illusion ever so subtly. It’s wonderful to see him grow and learn, to take my advice and implement it so seamlessly into his act. Smart and beautiful, he could steal any heart.

“Here, have one,” he offers and I know he’s been playing with the cards this whole time, tossing them in the air, juggling them and catching them as a pack but now I can all but see him bowing as he spreads the cards, holding them out to some audience member. He has a flair for the dramatic, learned or instinctual it doesn’t really matter because he wears it so well.

I play on, half listening as he captivates the audience, making things appear and disappear, creating things of thin air. They’re easily amused and fooled, they’re simple people after all, they’ve come to see a show and they’re only here to be entertained. They don’t look for the answer behind the tricks, they simply accept them all as tricks because what other answer could there possibly be?

They accept so much really, they accept that the music they hear is recorded and fake, they accept that the cards have markings on them or that the magician has a second deck hidden away to make his miraculous feats possible. They accept the soothing tempo of the music, they hold their breath as it rises and sigh as it descends, they follow the pattern of it all without even realizing and I know if I stopped playing they would all look around confused. They would blink and whisper between themselves, they would look around and wonder what changed.

None of them hear the music anymore, not consciously, but I know they’re swaying along to the rhythm I’ve set. There’s power in a tune, meaning in words, the art of manipulation is more than voices and bodies and I’m a Master of my craft.

“For my final trick, I’ll ask you all to get out of your seats. Everyone is going to play a part in this trick!” he laughs, big and vibrant, manic and ecstatic and I smile with him. He knows how to play his audience ever so well, he plays them better than I play my violin so doesn’t that tell you all you need to know?

We’re both skilled at what we do, he’s a marvel at charming a crowd and my talents lie in enchanting them one at a time, we’re a pretty couple. I play as they all get to their feet, as the chairs scrape back and he makes his table disappear, I step deftly to the side as it appears next to me and play on. This song he chose is haunting, beautiful but spine chilling, ever more so on an electric violin compared to a traditional.

The strings hum under my fingers, sing to my bow and I breathe slowly as the song creeps along to its end though we won’t have the chance to get there. Oh no, I breathe in as I step back, feel the solidness of his back to mine and follow his lead as he turns, where he faced his audience, now I do and I’m standing where he was in the middle of their crowd. I smile behind my mask, the perfect porcelain mask he provided me with, and take a bow as the crowd bursts into applause.

All they see is a smartly dressed man, violin in hand and half his face covered. I know half of them think this is simply a trick, that I was waiting under some concealed door, that perhaps I am the magician under a mask and with a fake prop. They probably think this mask is to hide who’s under it and they all so foolish to think the magician wasn’t wearing a mask all through his performance. Because he wears a mask too, one his enthralled audience was too foolish to notice but I saw it the very second he let it drop into place.

And I look to him now, standing behind this crowd with a smile less than happy on his face and a glint less than proud in his eye. The mask is hard to see but the damage isn’t, the cracks around his lips, the spider-web lines of shatter under the eyes. His mask is breaking and chipping, once perfect porcelain is flaking away and showing the truth underneath. Oh but not quite gone, not quite yet.

“Bravo!” he yells from behind his crowd as I straighten and reach for a woman’s hand, they all think this is the end of the show and they don’t realise this is simply the intermission. The woman smiles as I bow over her fingers and she smiles as I press my lips to the back of her hand and she smiles as blood dribbles between her lips and she falls dead to the ground. She dies with a smile on her face and happiness in her heart and truly how many amongst us will be afforded the same luxury?

The second of silence, shocked, stunned, confused, dazed silence is the finest vintage I have ever tasted. The mess of emotion playing across the face of the crowd, the blankness in their dull, stupid eyes, oh it’s marvelous. Ever so beautiful and ever so intoxicating.

Part of their confusion lies with me, of course it does. They haven’t the faintest idea who I am, all they see is a well dressed man with a violin, a man with soft black hair falling around his masked face. They have half of my face but they still can’t see the snarling smile on playing across my lips, they can’t see the malice in my eyes, they see nothing but the porcelain mask and nothing but the mocking smile painted below it.

“Oh my what a trick, m’lord, care to show us again?” Nikolai asks, laughs, shouts from behind their backs breaking the silken silence. Three try to run, tearing for the one exit they know through the tent but they don’t get far, they’re back in front of me before they can blink and they’re dead before they realise where they are. A simple, single touch is all it takes to steal the life from their bodies, faster than a bullet, quicker than poison, painless and simple.

A woman screams, one shrill, piercing shriek, just one before she’s falling to the ground as well. These people, these fucking sheep, they don’t realise they’ve all walked right to their own slaughter. Why do we kill them? To help purge the world of course, there’s always a higher reason and you could choose any of them you please when you want to commit a massacre. What’s my reason?

Oh I need to secure the trust of my new ally, the money from this hit will only sweeten the pot, I’m ever so bored and killing a few people is infinitely more fun than sitting on my ass and fucking with a computer. What’s my reason? I’m a genocidal fucker with so little regard for human life I consider them all animals and beneath me. I’m a bastard, a crazy, too intelligent bastard who finds joy in murder and happiness in lies.

“Where are you going? The show’s not done!” Nikolai yells and he appears before me, bends low at the waist and snatches a man trying to run, redirecting the momentum and flinging him through a portal I know opens up high above us. I nod at my Joker and take a step back, two for good measure and smile wider when the body crashes through the tent to splatter on the ground where I stood.

Oh the screams are a symphony now, a symphony of the damned and I don’t mean that metaphorically in the slightest. These sheep were marked for slaughter the second they stepped into this tent but not handpicked, they could have been anyone at all and they still would have died, screaming and terrified.

“When the sun sets, we’re both the same,” I hum behind my mask and tuck the violin under my chin to play the last few chords of the song. There are five people dead at my feet and more raining from the sky, the dead outnumber the living and soon there’ll be nothing but me and the music and a madman left.

“No touching the assistants!” Nikolai snarls and I don’t bother avoiding the fist aimed at my face, I don’t flinch when the man’s arm disappears and the blood of his severed newly severed limb sprays over me. The shrieks are piercing, terrible and damaged but I keep playing, wiping the blood from the strings as I go and watching as Nikolai kicks the man as he falls to the ground. There’s a viciousness on his face I love, a savagery closer to the face of a starving street urchin than a well dressed magician but looks are ever so deceiving, no?

The man dies under the magician’s boot, lungs collapsing under vicious assault and when he tears back around, the expression in his lovely eyes is feral. I do like him, this unhinged enchanter, this mad Joker, he’s perfect for every and any plan I could have.

“M’lord,” he tsks, reaching for the dirty mask and taking it away deftly, barely jarring my violin as I eek out the last few notes of this tune. I breathe slow and deep as he dashes the porcelain mask to pieces and reaches through another of his marvelous portals to drag the last sheep for sacrifice. A man, no a boy, eyes filled with tears, mucus leaking from his nose and lips trembling in his fear.

I remember myself at the age he probably is, a child so close to adult, unsure of the future but sure of my own conviction. What would I have done if our places had been reversed? Would I have run? Would I have offered my services to the magician and his fiddler playing their games of death? Would I have accepted my fate and lay down to await my end?

“The greatest trick of them all, darling, is making people think there’s a trick in the first place,” I tell him, smiling at him so understanding, so soothing as I take my bow from my strings. He can’t think of a thing to say, I can see the blankness in his eyes and I’m being merciful as I set the bow against his throat, really I am. I’m doing the poor boy a favour as I slide the bloody bow along his neck, giving him one last chance to pray for his soul, before my fingers brush his skin and he falls limp to the filthy floor.

So many twisted, broken bodies piled up around us, splattered and spattered and the flickering circus lights filtering through the holes in the ceiling sends strange shadows playing across them all. Outside the rest of the circus is probably gathered, ready to burst through the flimsy canvas to find our well planned massacre and it’s time to go.

Hmm, but one last trick before we leave I suppose.

“Bravo, Mr Magician, an exceptional performance,” I compliment Nikolai, throwing my violin on the ground and applauding him. He smiles, bright and joyful, bending himself in half as he bows, bows again and again as we continue our macabre act.

“Thank you m’lord, thank you kindly,” he laughs childishly as he straightens and I peel off my gloves and throw them to the side. I nod to him, close my eyes and when I open them, I’m on the far side of the field from where the circus set itself up. I can see the big top, magnificent and incredible in the last of the day’s fading light and I wait patiently for the rest of the screams to start. Then I turn my back and count with each step I take, slow and steady, don’t run, don’t panic.

1…2…3…4…5…6…7…8…9…10-

“They’ll be ash by tomorrow morning, m’lord,” Nikolai declares proudly and I don’t turn to see the fire I know he started, the fires. The circus will be ash by tomorrow morning.

[alternative-eyes]

https://s29883.pcdn.co/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Love-Ablan-300x300.jpg

Art provides an intimate exploration of interconnectivity, a journey into a universal language displayed in a tapestry of diversity, interwoven through vibrant threads of rhythms, sounds, tones, vibrations, movements, hues, shades, costumes, theatrics. The healing power of art is an unexplainable magnificence that starts deep within and spirals outward into an array of beauty and brilliance. Art in many forms has carried messages from one, to many – social, political, ecological issues and movements effectively protested through unique expressions that captivate purpose, intention, personal and collective consciousness. Art reveals the mysteries of the darkness we experience, while emboldening the light within to shine and spread in richness, creativity, and splendor.

At the IONS 18th International Conference this July in Santa Clara, California, we will gather together to explore what is possible for humanity and the role artistic creations play in our transformation. Join us for an interactive conversation with our Art and Consciousness Paneists Aranka Israni, Marco Cochrane, Fariba Bogzaran, Bertram Meyer, and Dana Lynne Anderson. You’ll be taken on a journey through visual art by Aranka Israni and engage in participatory artwork with Love Ablan, Jeremy Capdevielle, and Laurie Marshall. Experience musical performances by Mandhu Anziani, Thrive Choir, and Afrolicious.

For four days, you’ll also have the opportunity to discover yourself through deep transformation across a spectrum of healing modalities. The conference will offer morning yoga, meditation, and therapeutic practices in addition to a Gaia-sponsored lounge of relaxation. Our Inner Space Experiential Village will offer an eclectic mix of experiences and offerings: multimedia and interactive storytelling art, educational resources, massage therapy, biofield tuning and sound healing, life coaching, and much more.

Featured Panelists, Visual Artists, and Musical Performers

Aranka Israni | Artist I am intrigued by the capture, preservation and examination of moments between moments. My practice is deeply grounded in the alchemical process and representations of energy in conversion from one expression to another – of emotion as it seeks expansion, transmutation and release. My work is rooted in transformation, acknowledging separation that moves into union, and wholeness that is capable of stepping apart from itself and viewing its own nature.

  Dana Lynne Andersen | Artist Dana Lynne Andersen is a multimedia artist, writer, playwright and teacher who has taught and exhibited on three continents. With a Masters Degree in Consciousness Studies from John F. Kennedy University she uses art as a catalyst for seeding evolutionary ideas, showing in venues such as the California Institute of Integral Studies and the Institute of Noetic Sciences (where she was artist in residence). Her artwork has been featured on the covers of books and journals internationally, and her visionary thinking has been explored in newspapers, radio and television.

Fariba Bogzaran | Co-Founder of The Lucid Art Foundation Lucid art is the convergence of the universal creative force expressed in a spontaneous work of art that elicits in the viewer a sudden awakening of an aspect of the inner worlds. The Lucid Art Foundation was established in 1998 to support artists who explore the concepts of arts and consciousness.  Fariba Bogzaran, PhD 1994, is artist/scientist, and founder of the Dream Studies program at John F. Kennedy University in Berkeley, California, where she taught as an associate professor for 25 years. She teaches lucid dreaming at CIIS and gives lectures internationally. Using her art-based research, she co-founded Lucid Art Foundation (1998) with the surrealist painter Gordon Onslow Ford. She established an artist residency program for the foundation where artists work and live in the heart of nature. Fariba has lived adjunct to wilderness for the past thirty years and is active in earth’s preservation.

Marco Cochrane | Artist, Sculptor, Metal Worker Marco believes that the time we have to solve the problems that threaten our existence on this planet is running out, and that the key to finding real lasting solutions is bringing feminine energy into balance with male energy: a global shift, already underway.

  Bertram Meyer | Co-founder of ONEDOME Bertram Meyer is a serial entrepreneur who is the Co-founder and CEO of ONEDOME. Bertram is passionate about impactful and mission-driven businesses and in showing that they can be very profitable at the same time. ONEDOME is an immersive entertainment platform and destination, including the first permanent, interactive, multi-user mixed-reality experience (using AR). In collaboration with global creatives, innovators, artists and technologists, they curate interactive arts and immersive experiences that inspire a shift in the audience from the “Me” to the “We.”

Jeremy Capdevielle | Artist & Entrepreneur With a certificate in drama therapy, a degree in organizational behavior, and experience leading learning journeys in eight countries, Jeremy brings levity, fun, and depth wherever he goes. He’s a dedicated people geek who loves supporting leaders to leverage their power and voice to build belonging. As head of partnerships at Socially Creative, Jeremy cultivates relationships with visionary leaders to further the mission of belonging and collective creativity. When not people geeking out you can likely find him surfing with the dolphins (and trying to not think of great whites) just north of the Golden Gate Bridge.

Laurie Marshall | Artist For 40 years, Laurie’s goal has been to empower young people to have a positive impact on the challenges they face. What if we asked them to do only important work? Her passion for collaborative innovation, project-based learning, and arts integration has taken her to rural and urban classrooms. She co-founded a Waldorf-inspired parent cooperative named Hearthstone which is still going strong after 32 years.  Laurie has facilitated learning with universities,  government agencies, and businesses. In coaching teachers and administrators in public and private schools, she focuses on developing meaningful projects to heal community heartbreak (academic mastery always follows), violence prevention, and peace-building through art.  She models creative collaboration through the Singing Tree Mural Project  a youth-led process, inspired by trees, where communities make a shared vision of success. 74 murals have been made by 16,000 people from 50 countries so far.

Anziani | Sound Healer Through the complete recovery of being a wheelchair bound quadriplegic Madhu has learned vibrational vocal healing techniques from various traditions, including Tibetan Buddhism, Wisdom Healing Qi Gong, Peruvian Cross-Cultural Shamanism, and Taoism. A sound healer extraordinaire, he has also studied Jazz and World Music and went on to be certified in Sound, Voice, and Music Healing at CIIS. In his sessions he offers energy healing on an amethyst Crystal Biomat, using tuning forks tuned to sacred number ratios, as well as offering techniques and guidance for opening the healing power of the voice.

Thrive Choir The Thrive Choir was born to sing the music for the revolution. They are a diverse group of vocalists, artists, activists, educators, healers, and community organizers based in Oakland, California, directed by Bay Area musicians Austin Willacy and Kyle Lemle. Their heartfelt and soul-stirring original music is a fusion of gospel, soul and folk. As part of Thrive East Bay — a purpose-driven community focused on personal and social transformation — the Choir’s music illuminates the joy, pain, and beauty of what it means to be human in this time of systemic transformation. They lift up the house every first Sunday at Thrive East Bay in downtown Oakland; they have performed with Rising Appalachia, recorded with MaMuse, and shared the stage with social justice luminaries Ericka Huggins, Joanna Macy, and Fania Davis. They perform at marches, conferences and festivals across California, most recently at Bioneers, Blessed Unrest, IONS, the North America Permaculture Convergence, and the Women’s March. They are also launching a larger Thrive Street Choir, mobilizing hundreds of people to sing in hope and resistance at protests and beyond.

Afrolicious | Live Electronic Band Afrolicious has established itself as both one of the most legendary weekly parties in San Francisco, and of the top live/electronic bands on the scene. Started as a weekly dance party featuring DJs and brothers Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz alongside percussionists, MCs and horn players, and an amazing crowd from day one.  Between their weekly party and sound system shows that involve the brothers DJing alongside live percussion, they also have a six-piece live band that emphasizes the organic elements, instrumentation, and energy of a live ensemble combined with club heavy beats and textures the weekly party has come to be known for. The Afrolicious band and sound system has performed at such legendary venues as Red Rocks, Sierra Nevada World Music Festival, Electric Forest Festival, Snow Globe, Burningman, Sea of Dreams, The Independent, Great American Music Hall, Elbo Room in San Francsico (five plus years weekly residency), Cielo, Nublu, Bembe, Zanzibar, and Silent Frisco.

Love Ablan | Artist, Visual Storyteller, Biohacker, Adventure Guide Love Ablan believes the world is a magical place and everyone’s a hero on an epic journey. She is here to bring light, magic, and voice to these journeys, and help these stories come to life. Love resides on the sparkly shores of Los Angeles, and the misty docks of Martha’s Vineyard. Love is everywhere. As a Visual Storyteller, BioHacker and Adventure Guide, she travels the world learning self-mastery and meditation techniques from teachers of both ancient and modern traditions. Love combines art, meditation, and neuroscience to create visceral experiences that help everyday people master their minds, break self-limiting beliefs and patterns, and live a more meaningful, joyful, and authentic life.

The post Experience Transformative Art appeared first on IONS.

Experience Transformative Art https://noetic.org/blog/experience-transformative-art/

[andrearivera13-blog]

Ten Interesting Fiction Novels

1) The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson

Pak Jun Do is the haunted son of a lost mother—a singer “stolen” to Pyongyang—and an influential father who runs a work camp for orphans. Superiors in the North Korean state soon recognize the boy’s loyalty and keen instincts. Considering himself “a humble citizen of the greatest nation in the world,” Jun Do rises in the ranks. He becomes a professional kidnapper who must navigate the shifting rules, arbitrary violence, and baffling demands of his overlords in order to stay alive. Driven to the absolute limit of what any human being could endure, he boldly takes on the treacherous role of rival to Kim Jong Il in an attempt to save the woman he loves, Sun Moon, a legendary actress “so pure, she didn’t know what starving people looked like.” (Amazon.com)

2) When My Name Was Keoko by Linda Sue Park 

Sun-hee and her older brother, Tae-yul, live in Korea with their parents. Because Korea is under Japanese occupation, the children study Japanese and speak it at school. Their own language, their flag, the folktales Uncle tells them—even their names—are all part of the Korean culture that is now forbidden. When World War II comes to Korea, Sun-hee is surprised that the Japanese expect their Korean subjects to fight on their side. But the greatest shock of all comes when Tae-yul enlists in the Japanese army in an attempt to protect Uncle, who is suspected of aiding the Korean resistance. Sun-hee stays behind, entrusted with the life-and-death secrets of a family at war. (Amazon.com)

3) Every Falling Star: The True Story of How I Survived and Escaped North Korea by Sungju Lee, Susan Elizabeth McClelland

Every Falling Star, the first book to portray contemporary North Korea to a young audience, is the intense memoir of a North Korean boy named Sungju who is forced at age twelve to live on the streets and fend for himself. To survive, Sungju creates a gang and lives by thieving, fighting, begging, and stealing rides on cargo trains. Sungju richly re-creates his scabrous story, depicting what it was like for a boy alone to create a new family with his gang, his “brothers”; to be hungry and to fear arrest, imprisonment, and even execution. This riveting memoir allows young readers to learn about other cultures where freedoms they take for granted do not exist. (Amazon.com)

4) Without You, There is No Us: My Time with the Sons of North Korea's Elite by Suki Kim

Every Falling Star, the first book to portray contemporary North Korea to a young audience, is the intense memoir of a North Korean boy named Sungju who is forced at age twelve to live on the streets and fend for himself. To survive, Sungju creates a gang and lives by thieving, fighting, begging, and stealing rides on cargo trains. Sungju richly re-creates his scabrous story, depicting what it was like for a boy alone to create a new family with his gang, his “brothers”; to be hungry and to fear arrest, imprisonment, and even execution. This riveting memoir allows young readers to learn about other cultures where freedoms they take for granted do not exist. (Amazon.com)

5) Under the Same Sky: From Starvation in North Korea to Salvation in America by Joseph Kim

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 Inside the hidden and mysterious world of North Korea, Joseph Kim lived a young boy’s normal life until he was five. Then disaster struck: the first wave of the Great Famine, a long, terrible ordeal that killed millions, including his father, and sent others, like his mother and only sister, on desperate escape routes into China. (Amazon.com)

6) Hello, I Love You: A Novel by Katie M. Stout 

Grace Wilde is running—from the multi-million dollar mansion her record producer father bought, the famous older brother who's topped the country music charts five years in a row, and the mother who blames her for her brother's breakdown. Grace escapes to the farthest place from home she can think of, a boarding school in Korea, hoping for a fresh start. She wants nothing to do with music, but when her roommate Sophie's twin brother Jason turns out to be the newest Korean pop music superstar, Grace is thrust back into the world of fame. She can't stand Jason, whose celebrity status is only outmatched by his oversized ego, but they form a tenuous alliance for the sake of her friendship with Sophie. As the months go by and Grace adjusts to her new life in Korea, even she can't deny the sparks flying between her and the KPOP idol. Soon, Grace realizes that her feelings for Jason threaten her promise to herself that she'll leave behind the music industry that destroyed her family. But can Grace ignore her attraction to Jason and her undeniable pull of the music she was born to write? Sweet, fun, and romantic, Katie M. Stout's Hello, I Love You explores what it means to experience first love and discover who you really are in the process. (Amazon.com)

7) The Boy Who Escaped Paradise by J. M. Lee

An astonishing story of the mysteries, truths, and deceptions that follow the odyssey of Ahn Gilmo, a young math savant, as he escapes from the most isolated country in the world and searches for the only family he has left An unidentified body is discovered in New York City, with numbers and symbols are written in blood near the corpse. Gilmo, a North Korean national who interprets the world through numbers, formulas, and mathematical theories, is arrested on the spot. Angela, a CIA operative, is assigned to gain his trust and access his unique thought-process. The enigmatic Gilmo used to have a quiet life back in Pyongyang. But when his father, a preeminent doctor is discovered to be a secret Christian, he is subsequently incarcerated along with Gilmo, in a political prison overseen by a harsh, cruel warden. There, Gilmo meets the spirited Yeong-ae, who becomes his only friend. When Yeong-ae manages to escape, Gilmo flees to track her down. He uses his peculiar gifts to navigate betrayal and the criminal underworld of east Asia—a world wholly alien to everything he's ever known. In The Boy Who Escaped Paradise, celebrated author J. M. Lee delves into a hidden world filled with vivid characters trapped by ideology, greed, and despair. Gilmo's saga forces the reader to question the line between good and evil, truth and falsehood, captivity and freedom. (Amazon.com) 

8) The Frozen Hours: A Novel of the Korean War by Jeff Shaara 

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - The master of military historical fiction turns his discerning eye to the Korean War in this riveting new novel, which tells the dramatic story of the Americans and the Chinese who squared off in one of the deadliest campaigns in the annals of combat: the Battle of Chosin Reservoir, also known as Frozen Chosin. June 1950. The North Korean army invades South Korea, intent on uniting the country under Communist rule. In response, the United States mobilizes a force to defend the overmatched South Korean troops, and together they drive the North Koreans back to their border with China. But several hundred thousand Chinese troops have entered Korea, laying massive traps for the Allies. (Amazon.com) 

9) North Korean Memoirs: The Life of an American Agent Who Defected to North Korea by Mark Treston 

Journey into the life of a renegade American who decided to defect to the most reclusive and oppressive nation in modern history: North Korea. An American idealist defects to North Korea in the 1970's only to discover the true horrors of this Stalinist state. What happens next would shock even those familiar with authoritarian regimes. The author, an American Foreign Service worker in china, meets a man by the name of "David". David entrusts the author with his diary and makes the author promise him that the diary will be shown to the world as "evidence of what North Korea is really like". Following this encounter, the author never sees David again. The author discovers that within the pages of this diary lies an incredible story of defection, survival, and an eventual escape by the man he knows only as "David". After staying up and reading the entire diary, the author is convinced that David's story must be told to the world. The diary details David's life from his fairly comfortable upbringings, through his rebellious youth, and into his extraordinary decision to defect to North Korea. At first, David enjoys an elevated status in North Korea as a "hero" and a "patriot" of the socialist cause. During two decades as an English professor at the most prestigious North Korean University, David experiences love, seduction, betrayal, and violence. (Amazon.com) 

10) My Last Empress by Da Chen

A sweeping story of passion and obsession, set against the upheavals of nineteenth-century imperial China, by the New York Times bestselling author Da ChenWhen Samuel Pickens’s great love tragically loses her life, Samuel travels the globe, Annabelle always on his mind. Eventually, he comes face-to-face with the mirror image of his obsession in the last place he would expect and must discover her secrets and decide how far he will go for a woman he loves. Da Chen immerses the reader in the world of the Chinese imperial palace, filled with ghosts and grief, where bewitching concubines, treacherous eunuchs, and fierce warlords battle for supremacy. Chen takes us deeply into an epic saga of nineteenth-century China, where one man searches for his destiny and a forbidden love. (Amazon.com)