Category Archives: thoughts

Books Update (April 2010)

I was at Kyobo Bookstore on April 27th, 2010 when I spotted a brand-new layout design of Bloomberg Businessweek magazine (photo above). It was a welcome facelift compared to the previous design whose use of bland sans serif headline type was rather awkward and even ugly. I am looking forward to the Korean edition of BusinessWeek to catch up with the new layout.

Meanwhile, my favorite magazine layout design is that of Time magazine, redesigned in 2007. I found out that the design was done by Pentagram. No wonder.

The books I have been reading this month:

  1. John Scalzi, Old Man’s War – Very interesting read. Actually it was much more engaging than the movie Avatar.
  2. Stephen Pollan, Die Broke – The book provides very interesting perspectives on wrapping up one’s life. The author is the father of Michael Pollan who wrote The Omnivore’s Dilemma
  3. 가와다 오사무, 가방은 손수건 위에 (국일미디어) – 일본의 보험 영업 사원으로 일하는 저자가 쓴 일종의 자서전 같은 건데 고객을 대하는 철저한 정신을 통해 많은 것을 배웠음.
  4. 김송호, 공학의 숲에서 경영을 논하다 (페이퍼로드) – 오래 알고 지내는 어느 회사 사장님이 꼭 읽어보라고 선물해 주신 책.
  5. 박경진, 나의 믿음은 오직 감사 (국민일보사) – 아버지께서 저자 출판기념회 겸 고희 잔치에서 받아오신 책. 어려서부터 고생으로 점철된 인생의 역정 가운데서도 깊이 있는 신앙의 삶을 살아온 저자의 자서전인데 무척 감명 깊게 읽었다.
  6. 이소무라 타케시, 이중세뇌 – 3월에 읽은 “행복의 조건“이란 책에서 45세에 흡연과 음주를 하고 있는 사람은 노년이 상대적으로 더욱 불행하더라 하는 연구 결과를 보고 담배를 아직도 피우는 주변의 45세 지인들에게 추천해 주고자 구해서 본 책. 과연 이 책을 읽으면 담배를 끊게 될지는 모르겠지만 재미있게 읽었음.
  7. 이승휘, 케냐의 유혹 – 케냐에 이주하여 5년째 여행사를 운영하는 저자의 생활 기록.

Books to read in May 2010:

  1. Richard H Thaler, Cass R Sunstein, Nudge
  2. Atul Gawande, The Checklist Manifesto – 지난 2월에 구해놓고 읽다 말았음. 다시 읽어야지
  3. 에너지 버스, 꿈꾸는 다락방 등도 읽고 싶음.

The Cost of Energy

During my short stay in Nairobi, Kenya, I learned a bit about the electric power supply problems there.

The electricity price in Nairobi is five times as expensive as in Korea. One Korean living in Nairobi told me that they are charged more than $1,000 each month for the electricity. And it is not that they have lots of electric home appliances.

No wonder the hotels in Nairobi are so expensive. (The lowest rate at a decent downtown hotel is around $300 per night.)

When there isn’t sufficient rainfall in the region, the country cannot generate enough power from the hydro-power plant. Then they have to burn lots of diesel oil to run oil-based power plant, a very expensive alternative.

Also, for now only about 10% of the population has access to electric power. As their economy grows, more people would want to use electricity. Without enough supply, the growing demand for electricity will only keep the price stay in the high range.

In order to break out of this ordeal, Kenyan government is seeking more economical ways to generate sufficient electric power. Geothermal plant, coal-based plant, and nuclear plant are some of the alternatives they are looking into.

With that in mind, I am very grateful for the situation in Korea where most of the population has access to comparatively cheap electricity. But it shouldn’t mean that Koreans can use electric power in a wasteful manner. Koreans should come up with ideas to take advantage of this low-cost power supply situation to build stronger social infrastructure. The competitive advantage of having been blessed with cheap electric energy might not continue very long.

Library in the Subway

I guess it was a couple of years ago when the staffs in Sinsa subway station in Seoul, Korea decided to put an open bookshelf in their halls. Apparently they expected the passengers using the subway station would borrow from the bookshelf and then return the books in time for the next person to keep enjoying the collections.

At first, there were some books to begin with. Fast forward to what the bookshelf looks like now (photo above). Despite the earnest plea to return the books (as written on the notes), the books disappeared rather quickly. All you can see now are some piles of advertisement brochures.

So, obviously the original plan to have a working open library has been a failure. Yet the subway office did not bother to do anything about this empty bookshelf. Neither did they think of removing the now defunct notes. Perhaps they decided to leave this in public display as an expression of their resentment or disillusion against the sorry state of civility exhibited by the library users.

In spite of all the good intentions, some ideas are destined to fail by design or lack thereof.

- – -
* There is another case of subway station library which failed in even larger scale.

** Jae Woong Yoo’s critique on what’s wrong with the subway library.

The Magician's Nephew

아내가 지역 도서관에서 빌려온 C. S. Lewis의 The Magician’s Nephew. 무엇보다 반가운 것은 책을 읽어주는 오디오북 CD가 같이 포함되어 있다는 것. 내용을 아주 실감나게 낭독해 주는 덕분에 듣고 있으면 이야기의 세계 속으로 몰입하게 된다.

C. S. Lewis 작품은 인물의 생각을 표현하거나 상황을 묘사하는 문장에서 느껴지는 쫄깃쫄깃한 언어의 묘미가 일품이다. 어렵지 않은 단어를 절묘하게 조합해서 사람의 복잡한 심리나 미묘한 상황을 실감나게 표현해 내는 그의 문학성에 나는 여러 번 매료되었다. 이에 비해 그의 작품을 영화화했을 때는 그런 문학적 특징을 충분히 반영하지 못하는 어려움이 있다. 아이들에게 C. S. Lewis의 작품을 소개하려면 영화보다는 책을 권한다.