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A River in Darkness
- One Man's Escape from North Korea
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 5 hrs and 54 mins
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Publisher's summary
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.
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- Escape and Survival in Hitler’s France
- By: Joseph Weismann
- Narrated by: J. Clark Allison
- Length: 5 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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A “must-listen” book
- By Jonathan R Scupin on 09-25-18
By: Joseph Weismann
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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
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
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A Face for Refugees
- By Daryl on 12-10-16
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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
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
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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
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The Aquariums of Pyongyang
- By: Chol-hwan Kang, Pierre Rigoulot
- Narrated by: Stephen Park
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Riveting!!
- By Iread on 11-12-20
By: Chol-hwan Kang, and others
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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
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
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A Tragic and Rich Life, With Lessons For All
- By still reading on 03-17-16
By: Vic Shayne, and others
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The Boy on the Wooden Box
- By: Leon Leyson, Marilyn J. Harran - contributor
- Narrated by: Danny Burstein
- Length: 4 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
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Schindler's List though a child's eyes
- By Jan on 10-16-13
By: Leon Leyson, and others
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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
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Fantastic story. Well read.
- By Jfm on 02-20-16
By: Lucia Jang, and others
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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
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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What a love story
- By Sbear on 11-19-18
By: Millie Werber, and others
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Wild Swans
- Three Daughters of China
- By: Jung Chang
- Narrated by: Joy Osmanski
- Length: 22 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Accurate, moving and chilling
- By David on 12-15-12
By: Jung Chang
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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
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Tragic yet we'll written
- By ARM on 10-07-16
By: Mark Mathabane
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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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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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The man who wants to be GOD
- By Gohar on 05-08-10
By: Barbara Demick
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Slave
- By: Mende Nazar, Damien Lewis
- Narrated by: Adjoa Andoh
- Length: 10 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
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Heartbreaking dose of reality
- By Sarah on 09-02-09
By: Mende Nazar, and others
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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
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
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WONDERFUL!!!
- By Robyn Collins on 02-29-16
By: J. L. Witterick
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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
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
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Amazing
- By Nordic Artisan on 07-09-18
By: Planaria Price, and others
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Outstanding! A life-changing listen.
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Did not like narrator
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Nothing to Envy
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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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The man who wants to be GOD
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The Real North Korea
- Life and Politics in the Failed Stalinist Utopia
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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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Broad and nuanced account of North Korea
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In Order to Live
- A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
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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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Wow. What a story!
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A Thousand Miles to Freedom
- My Escape from North Korea
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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.
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Not Much New Here, but Courage and Hope to Spare
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By: Sebastien Falletti, and others
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Dear Leader
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Outstanding! A life-changing listen.
- By Gotta Tellya on 09-29-14
By: Jang Jin-sung
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The Girl with Seven Names
- A North Korean Defector’s Story
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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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Did not like narrator
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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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The man who wants to be GOD
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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
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Broad and nuanced account of North Korea
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By: Andrei Lankov
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In Order to Live
- A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom
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- Narrated by: Eji Kim
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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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A Thousand Miles to Freedom
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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.
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Not Much New Here, but Courage and Hope to Spare
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The Aquariums of Pyongyang
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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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Riveting!!
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By: Chol-hwan Kang, and others
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The Hard Road Out
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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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Harrowing
- By Elijah Roberts on 11-26-23
By: Jihyun Park, and others
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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
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Authentic
- By Amazon customer on 02-01-24
By: Blaine Harden
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While Time Remains
- A North Korean Girl's Search for Freedom in America
- By: Yeonmi Park
- Narrated by: Maureen Taylor
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
After defecting from North Korea, Yeonmi Park found liberty and freedom in America. But she also found a chilling crackdown on self-expression and thought that reminded her of the brutal regime she risked her life to escape. When she spoke out about the mass political indoctrination she saw around her in the United States, Park faced censorship and even death threats.
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This should be required reading. Amazing book
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The Sister
- North Korea's Kim Yo Jong, the Most Dangerous Woman in the World
- By: Sung-Yoon Lee
- Narrated by: Dexter Galang
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
The first woman ever to issue the threat of a nuclear weapons strike is not even officially a head of state. Kim Yo Jong is the sister of North Korea’s Supreme Leader Kim Jong Un and, as their murderous regime’s chief propagandist, internal administrator, and foreign policymaker, she is the most powerful woman in North Korean history. Cruel but charming, she threatens and insults foreign leaders with sardonic wit, issuing proclamations and denunciations in her own name, a first for any woman in the Korean royal family.
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Too many details distracting from the story
- By Lilia on 11-24-23
By: Sung-Yoon Lee
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Every Falling Star
- The True Story of How I Survived and Escaped North Korea
- By: Sungju Lee, Susan McClelland
- Narrated by: David Shih
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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 12 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 recreates his scabrous story, depicting what it was like for a boy alone to create a new family with his gang, his "brothers".
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Riveting, sad, and inspirational
- By Janis Creason on 09-17-16
By: Sungju Lee, and others
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Chernobyl 01:23:40
- The Incredible True Story of the World's Worst Nuclear Disaster
- By: Andrew Leatherbarrow
- Narrated by: Michael Page
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
At 01:23:40 on April 26th 1986, Alexander Akimov pressed the emergency shutdown button at Chernobyl's fourth nuclear reactor. It was an act that forced the permanent evacuation of a city, killed thousands, and crippled the Soviet Union. The event spawned decades of conflicting, exaggerated, and inaccurate stories.
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Lost in his own navel
- By Christopher on 10-17-16
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The Last Girl
- My Story of Captivity, and My Fight Against the Islamic State
- By: Nadia Murad
- Narrated by: Ilyana Kadushin
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Nadia Murad was born and raised in Kocho, a small village of farmers and shepherds in Northern Iraq. A member of the Yazidi community, she and her brothers and sisters lived a quiet life. Nadia had dreams of becoming a history teacher or opening her own beauty salon. On August 15, 2014, when Nadia was just 21 years old, this life ended. Islamic State militants massacred the people of her village, executing men who refused to convert to Islam and women too old to become sex slaves.
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A Heartbreaking Tale of Survival and Hope
- By Leahmgordon on 11-08-17
By: Nadia Murad
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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
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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.
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Tugs at the heart strings
- By R3v13w3r on 07-15-15
By: Joseph Kim, and others
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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
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
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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Fantastic story. Well read.
- By Jfm on 02-20-16
By: Lucia Jang, and others
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The Great Passage
- By: Shion Miura, Juliet Winters Carpenter - translator
- Narrated by: Brian Nishii
- Length: 7 hrs and 31 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Inspired as a boy by the multiple meanings to be found for a single word in the dictionary, Kohei Araki is devoted to the notion that a dictionary is a boat to carry us across the sea of words. But after thirty-seven years creating them at Gembu Books, it's time for him to retire and find his replacement. He discovers a kindred spirit in Mitsuya Majime - a young, disheveled square peg with a penchant for collecting antiquarian books and a background in linguistics - whom he swipes from his company's sales department.
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Engaging, unusual, fun
- By LGLH on 02-11-18
By: Shion Miura, and others
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North Korea Undercover
- Inside the World's Most Secret State
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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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Highly listenable, humorous and enlightening
- By Kevin Stokes on 09-09-15
By: John Sweeney
What listeners say about A River in Darkness
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- DJW
- 01-03-18
Awful! And I don't mean the book . . .
This memoir is a horrifying saga on so many levels: personal, familial, communal, political, institutional, national, and global. Masaji Ishikawa, with his elegant yet understated prose, has changed my world view forever. How can one person treat another with such stark cruelty? How can one person endure such circumstances? How can governments and institutions get away with such blatant lies and abject misconduct? No doubt, I will never again think of myself as hungry, thirsty, stifled, scared, or mistreated without thinking of Mr. Ishikawa and silently rebuking myself. Gratitude is my mantra for 2018. (Would love to follow up and know how he is managing.)
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92 people found this helpful
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- Wayne
- 07-18-18
North Korea horror - non-fiction
I listened to and reviewed In Order to Live by Yeonmi Park six months ago. A RIVER IN DARKNESS is a very different story but like In Order to Live it is a damning account of the government of and living condition in North Korea. A River in Darkness also covers a much longer period of time and there is no happy ending; there is only continuing pain, suffering and death from brutality and starvation. Listening is painful, but also worthwhile.
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89 people found this helpful
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- C. F. Gagnon
- 05-31-18
Heartbreaking
I just finished this book, and I immediately Googled the author. There are no stories about him other than this book, and I wonder if he has made any money from this book because I personally got it because it was on the Amazon free day. The story is engrossing and heartbreaking, and the picture of humanity here is dark and powerful. All I can think about is hoping that some sunshine comes into his life and some news of his family reaches him in time to have them reunited or to at least help them get out somehow. I am so grateful to be able to read his account and his memoir. I would recommend this book to anyone if only to convey some picture of what life is truly like in North Korea.
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71 people found this helpful
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- Kaite
- 03-27-18
Brian Nishii is amazing
Brian Nishii is an incredible narrator. The story is so touching and I easily was drawn in. I hurt for the author and his woes
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30 people found this helpful
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- Tara v PRESTRIDGE
- 07-12-18
The fortunate
His story is a reminder of why we must defend our democracy. Every election is one vote to protect what we have or lose a little freedom
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25 people found this helpful
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- Legba
- 07-14-18
Important story on what life is really like in N Korea
Detailed, personal account of life in N Korea and the apathy and complicity of Western Governments to the situation there.
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20 people found this helpful
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- Claudia Schmidt
- 07-07-18
True eye opener
Growing up in a communist country myself, it was quite interesting to read someone’s story growing up in another communist place half around the world. While there were certainly many similarities, I feel so fortunate to have lived so much better. It is horrid how nations turn a blind eye to people withering away in places such as North Korea. This book is far from a great literary contribution but I appreciate his honesty and for sharing his story with the world to wake us up even if it’s just a prayer we can say for them.
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19 people found this helpful
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- Rick Alexander
- 04-25-18
A Stark Story of Surviving the Hell of North Korea
Wow! What a powerful story! A must-read for every American. This story tells the detailed account of a survivor who escsped from North Korea. It is full of raw emotions and almost incomprehensible horrors. For me it illustrated the incredible blessings of freedom in America and demonstrated very brutally the effects of totalitarianism versus capitalism. Anyone who believes in socialism should read this book. It should forever change their mind. Every American and international lawmaker should read it too and enact policy accordingly.
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18 people found this helpful
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- Kimmer68
- 05-22-18
Riveting!!
I listened to the whole book in one go. I’ve been listening to books written by people who have escaped NK for a while now, there’s just something about their lives and will to survive that draws me in. This mans story is probably the darkest ive heard. His life begins in Japan and then his family moves to NK with promises for a better life. It’s quickly apparent to them that they were lied to and are now trapped in an even more awful life than they left... This mans courage to continue no matter what happens inspired me and reminds me to always appreciate what I have... even though he has left NK he still lives in a life of limbo and that made me saddest of all. Hope he gets closure and lives the life he deserves.
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16 people found this helpful
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- Beckersly
- 05-30-18
Heart Wrenching Story
This memoir is extremely sad. You feel totally heart broken for this man and all he endures. Regardless of my personal opinions on the book/story-telling...this book is an eye-opening experience and everyone should read it.
Now personally, this book was missing something for me and I can't quite put my fingers on what it is. Whether it's in the way the story is told or if something was maybe lost in translation. I feel bad saying that but it's my honest opinion of the book. It was very much like a journalist was writing an article.
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15 people found this helpful