Recent books

Herbert Von Karajan: A Life in Music

Richard Osborne; translated into Korean by Yang Sang-mo; Shimsan Culture Publishing; 636 pp., 30,000 won

This is a comprehensive and well-balanced biography of one of the greatest and most celebrated performing artists of the 20th century, maestro Herbert von Karajan (1908-1989).

This meticulously researched biography provides a compelling portrait of a complex man who was driven to achieve power, success, and perfection in his career and in his personal life. As the young Karajan told his brother, “Whether it’s conducting, skiing, or motor racing, I simply want to be the best.”

The book has been translated into Korean for the first time and was published here last week.

Osborne draws on his own extensive conversations with Karajan as well as interviews with those who personally knew the conductor.

The author discusses some of the canny highlights of Karajan’s life, particularly those relating to his joining the Nazi Party, which he allegedly did in 1935 to obtain a conducting appointment.

While the decision haunted him throughout his life, Karajan’s career flourished after the war. Karajan once concurrently held six of the world’s most prestigious musical posts, including director of the Salzburg Festival, artistic director of the Vienna State Opera, and conductor for life of the Berlin Philharmonic.

After signing with legendary producer Walter Legge, Karajan achieved international fame through his best-selling recordings.

He also embraced the challenge of adapting to rapidly changing technologies and quickly mastered each new medium ― television, vinyl LPs, tapes, and CDs.

― Do Je-hae

How to Use Steve Jobs

Han Mi-hwa; Keorum: 280 pp., 15,000 won

It has been a year since Steve Jobs, former CEO of Apple and father of the iPhone, passed away. Jobs was one of the most successful and influential managers in the 20th century, combining creative imagination and engineering vision.

“How to Use Steve Jobs” reviews his life, achievements in running Apple and innovative brainchildren including the Mac and iPhone in an objective manner and suggests ways to implement Jobs’ principles.

The book divides his legacy into four parts ― life, innovation, leadership and design. The first chapter deals with his life from when he first became interested in computer to the limitations he faced when he was diagnosed with cancer. Jobs was also a pioneer, who actualized innovation through ground-breaking products. He was known for his unique leadership ― bad-tempered and dogmatic but frank in manner and his shared vision with his company. He also cared about and changed the concept of design in information technology.

This book summarizes what he said and did in the phrase, “Love your life and your job.”

― Kwon Mee-yoo

Buddhism and Buddhist Studies: A historical understanding of Buddhism

Cho Seong-taek; Dolbegae: 352 pp., 15,000 won

This isn't a linear history of how one of the world's most popular religions was formed but rather how the study of Buddhism started and contributed to our perception of it.

Pinpointing that the modern scholarship of the religion relies heavily on Western traditions and therefore sometimes carries an inevitable bias as a premise to understanding it, Cho Seong-taek argues that it is timely to reevaluate the ways of approaching its studies.

Starting with how Westerners first "discovered" Buddhism in modern times, the author returns the reader back to ancient India where the religion was first founded and shows an early glimpse of the studies conducted at the time. As the religion spread to other regions, mostly in East Asia, Cho shows how mingling with local culture transforms certain concepts, practices and the understanding of sacred texts. Buddhist ideology, unlike Christianity, is not centripetal but is molded to be strikingly different from place to place due to its peculiar nature of being a religion, philosophy and way of life, he says.

― Cho Mu-hyun