Reddit mentions of The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea

Here's my suggested reading list:

The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters

The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea

Escaping North Korea

This is Paradise!: My North Korean Childhood

White Tigers: My Secret War in North Korea (Memories of War)

The Tears of my Soul: An autobiography of the bomber of Korean Air Flight 858

The Great North Korean Famine: How and why it happened, and why it will happen again and again.

I have read a lot about this situation as I mod at r/northkorea and he is among a few others that defected. Dresnok himself is from my hometown and he and three others including Jenkins tried to get out of North Korea through the Soviet Embassy, where they were promptly turned back over to NK officials.

Dresnok probably still hates it there, but he has no ability to say so.

Jenkins by the way wrote a book entitled The Reluctant Communist if any of you are fellow North korean enthusiasts like me.

Read The Reluctant Communist by Charles Robert Jenkins, a fellow defector. He spent decades in North Korea with Dresnok (the guy from the article), and this book is his first-hand account of the bizarre world of the DPRK and the changing mores of North Korea.

Even for those not interested in NK, this is an excellent one-of-a-kind narrative.

Charles Jenkins wrote about how they viewed racial purity in his book The Reluctant Communist. They gave him an infertile maid with the expectation that she would be raped by him and they didn't want to risk the creation of a racially impure baby.

Amazon's got it: https://www.amazon.com/Reluctant-Communist-Court-Martial-Forty-Year-Imprisonment/dp/0520259998

This is awesome, you would really like the book by Charles Jenkins. He was housemates and later, neighbors with Dresnok for 30+ years in North Korea. He is the one of the 4 known defectors that actually made it out of NK, the other two died and Dresnok I believe is still there.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Reluctant-Communist-Court-Martial-Imprisonment/dp/0520259998/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1335149060&sr=8-1

Great find, I appreciate it!

HERE is a pretty good summation of the state of the DPRK armed forces. Other resources you could consult include:

• Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea
  
• The Reluctant Communist: My Desertion, Court-Martial, and Forty-Year Imprisonment in North Korea
  
• The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters
  
  Those are all books I've read that I think give some good insight about the current state of affairs in North Korea.
  
  But, seriously, use some common sense. What are you suggesting? That North Korea, and only North Korea, has magical digging capabilities? That only the Great Leader can supply spades that can (a) put decrepit Cold War artillery completely beyond the reach of the most powerful air force in human history while simultaneously (b) enable that artillery to destroy Seoul with impunity? What, exactly, is it that you think gives North Korea this supreme magical power? Is it the lack of electricity and food, or Juche?
  
  If you think that it is a lack of military might, rather than geopolitical reality, that prevents the US from obliterating the DPRK's armed forces then you're just flat wrong.

it's called The Reluctant Communist
really great book, definately encourage you to read it. If not for your interest in North Korea then at least because it's such a great story.