Juhoon • Bookshelf
Books Recommended by Juhoon From CORTIS
Juhoon reads more than anyone else in CORTIS, and he reads seriously.
Juhoon is the reader of the group. Nine books have been tied to him so far, and they are not light picks: Korean literary fiction, Hesse, Melville, a Roman Stoic and one self help book he shares with Martin.
The short answer
Juhoon has read or recommended Demian, Moby-Dick, The Art of Loving, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, and four Korean and Japanese titles: Kim Ae-ran’s 『안녕이라 그랬어』, Seong Hae-na’s 『혼모노』, Suzuki Yui’s 『괴테는 모든 것을 말했다』 and Na Tae-joo’s 『너를 아끼며 살아라』. Right now he is reading an adaptation of Seneca.
What Juhoon is reading right now
『세네카, 오늘을 빼앗기고 있는 당신에게』
Seneca, To You Who Are Being Robbed of Today · adapted from Lucius Annaeus Seneca
An adaptation of the teachings of the Stoic philosopher Seneca, built from fifty five short pieces drawn out of five of his dialogues.
It is about how we spend our limited time: how easily we let other people and unnecessary worries take that time away from us, and why we should learn to value the present and make meaningful use of it instead of constantly postponing life for the future. The Korean edition has been a number one bestseller, which tells you the argument has landed with a lot of people who feel exactly that way about their own days.
Every book Juhoon has read or recommended
These are the ones tied specifically to him, from interviews, lives and photos where the cover was visible. A few are shared with other members, and that is marked.
Korean books
Three contemporary Korean titles, two of them very recent and both of those serious literary fiction rather than easy reading.
『안녕이라 그랬어』 (I Said Goodbye)
Kim Ae-ran
Kim Ae-ran’s first story collection in eight years, seven stories circling money and the people who live next to us. Her characters quit jobs and fly somewhere far away, agonise over whether to buy a flat or keep renting, take sick parents to hospital, sink everything they have into a small business, study English to try to become someone else. The title story follows a young man on leave from university, helping at his parents’ restaurant after a breakup. Korean readers voted it book of the year, and fifty Korean novelists picked it as the novel of the year.
『혼모노』 (Honmono)
Seong Hae-na
The title comes from the Japanese word for the real thing, and the title story earns it. Munsu has been a shaman for thirty years when he realises his goddess has left him and gone to the young shaman across the street. His visions stop, his main client tears up their contract and hands the ritual to her, and he storms in on it, turning the ceremony into a public trial over which of them is genuine. The rest of the collection works the same seam through gender, class, family and internet culture. Seong Hae-na won Korea’s Young Writers’ Award two years running.
『너를 아끼며 살아라』 (Live Cherishing Yourself)
Na Tae-joo
Na Tae-joo is the poet behind “Grass Flower”, the tiny poem every Korean student knows, and this is his book of essays, assembled from notes he kept while preparing lectures. It is a life written backwards through his own setbacks and the long stretch when nobody read him. The advice is simple and he means it: if you lost your nerve, go the way you wanted to go anyway, and if you do not think much of yourself, start there.
Fiction in translation
One German novel from 1919, one American novel from 1851 and one Japanese novel that has just won its country’s biggest literary prize.
Demian Also read by Keonho
Hermann Hesse
Emil Sinclair grows up between two worlds: the bright, orderly, slightly airless house of his parents, and the rougher one outside it that keeps pulling at him. Then Max Demian arrives and offers a third option, which is to stop choosing between them and become a whole person instead. It is short, strange and full of lines people copy into the front of their notebooks, including the one about the bird that has to fight its way out of the egg. Clearly a dorm favourite, since Keonho has read it too.
Moby-Dick
Herman Melville
Ishmael signs on to a whaling ship and finds out too late that its captain is not hunting whales, he is hunting one whale, the one that took his leg. It is an adventure novel, an encyclopaedia of whaling and a very long argument about obsession, all in the same book, and it goes off on tangents constantly. The most demanding thing on Juhoon’s list by a wide margin.
『괴테는 모든 것을 말했다』 (Goethe Said Everything)
Suzuki Yui
A leading Goethe scholar is at dinner with his family when he notices a Goethe quotation printed on the tag of a tea bag, and realises he has never seen it before. So he goes looking, back through the originals and through his own decades of research, to find out whether Goethe ever said it at all. What starts as a joke about a tea bag turns into a real question about what scholarship is and who a sentence belongs to. It won Japan’s Akutagawa Prize.
Books about how to live
Two books making the same argument from opposite ends: that the thing you want takes practice, and that it costs something.
The Art of Loving A gift from the vice CEO
Erich Fromm
Fromm’s argument is that love is not a feeling you fall into, it is a skill you get good at, and almost nobody treats it that way. Like any other craft it needs discipline, concentration, patience and the willingness to be bad at it first. Written in 1956 and still uncomfortably accurate about how people date.
The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck Also read by Martin
Mark Manson
The counter argument to relentless positivity. You only have so much attention, so the useful question is not how to care about everything but what you are willing to suffer for, and everything else can go. Blunt, funny and much more about values than the title suggests.
What Juhoon’s reading list says about him
Two things stand out. The first is that he reads current Korean literary fiction, not only classics: 『안녕이라 그랬어』 and 『혼모노』 are both recent, both award winners, and both are about people under financial and social pressure. That is a specific taste, not a list someone assembled to look well read.
The second is that half the list is the same problem seen from different angles: what to do with a life. Seneca on time, Fromm on love, Manson on attention, Na Tae-joo on self worth. Put next to Demian, which is a novel about becoming yourself, it reads like someone genuinely working something out rather than collecting books.
Where to start if you want to read like Juhoon
If you have one evening
Demian. It is short, it moves, and it is the one book two members of CORTIS have both read.
If you want the one he is reading right now
The Seneca adaptation. It is built out of fifty five short pieces, so you can read one on a bus and put it down, which is exactly how a book about not wasting your time should work.
If you read Korean
『혼모노』. The title story is the best thing on this whole list, and it is the one that will be hardest to find in translation for a while.
If you only want the practical one
The Art of Loving. It is about a hundred and thirty pages and it will change how you argue with people you like.
Frequently asked questions
What book is Juhoon from CORTIS reading now?
『세네카, 오늘을 빼앗기고 있는 당신에게』, which translates as “Seneca, to you who are being robbed of today”. It is an adaptation of the teachings of the Stoic philosopher Seneca, about how we spend the time we have.
How many books has Juhoon recommended?
Nine so far have been tied to him specifically, which is more than any other member of CORTIS.
What Korean books does Juhoon read?
Kim Ae-ran’s 『안녕이라 그랬어』, Seong Hae-na’s 『혼모노』 and Na Tae-joo’s 『너를 아끼며 살아라』. The first two are recent award winning literary fiction.
Do other CORTIS members read the same books as Juhoon?
Yes. Keonho has also read Demian, and Martin has also read The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck. The rest of the group’s reading is collected in the CORTIS book recommendations post.
Where did Juhoon’s book list come from?
Interviews, live streams and photos where a cover was visible, gathered by fans. None of it is an official list, and he has almost certainly read plenty that nobody caught on camera.
Keep going
More of his world is one click away: the whole group’s bookshelf, the perfumes they wear, and Juhoon’s member page.
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