Minumsa, one of the leading publishing houses in the country, unveiled its ambitious project this week: A new 16-volume series featuring Korean history.The publishing house introduced the first two volumes of the series on Tuesday, one featuring 15th century Joseon and the other on the 16th century. The remaining 14 installments will hit local bookstores over the next three years. “For the last 50 years, we have been publishing a lot of books on philosophy and literature, not too many on history

Filmmaker Hwang Dong-hyuk’s latest protagonist Oh Mal-soon (played by veteran actress Na Moon-hee) is the kind of old woman whom you don’t want to have as your mother-in-law.She is shameless and controlling, complains about your food, and is not afraid to belittle you in front of your children. Mal-soon’s biggest pride is her son, who is a university professor, and that she managed to raise him by herself, against all odds. The real story of the film, “Miss Granny,” begins with Mal-soon suddenly

Musical actress Park Ji-yeon grew up listening to music, always wearing her earphones. As a teen, her first crush was a guitarist in a school rock band. Her favorite singer? Michael Bolton.“When my teacher told me to study at the back of the classroom, I would listen to Michael Bolton instead,” Park said in an interview with The Korea Herald. “And I remember breaking down in tears after listening to his song, ‘How Am I Supposed to Live Without You.’ I was 18 at the time, and the lyrics just got

“The Dinner,” the closing film of last year’s Busan International Film Festival, is finally hitting theaters this month, according to its distributor IndieStory.Directed by Kim Dong-hyun, the film is a drama about an ordinary Korean family facing a series of financial and other misfortunes. It was screened as a world premiere during BIFF last year.The film features an old married couple, who are financially dependent on their children. Yet all of their children have their own problems, often fin

“August: Osage County” travels from the stage to the screen with much of its theatricality intact. Too much. For all the scenic prairie panoramas and lived-in look of the big, rural Oklahoma house that is the setting, it still feels like a play ― with Meryl Streep, Julia Roberts and pretty much everybody else projecting to the back row.It’s a sharp-tongued melodrama of cruelty, comical cursing, “big scenes” and shocking revelations. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Tracy Letts kept it all in th

Flight and room package at Lotte Hotel JejuCelebrating the arrival of the New Year, Lotte Hotel Jeju presents flight and room in a package. The New Year’s Airtel (Airline & Hotel) Package consists of a two-night stay in the hotel’s Deluxe Mountain View Room and two round-trip Asiana Airlines tickets to Jeju. Bookings for this package are limited to 10 rooms per day. Reservations are made on a first-come, first-served basis. As part of the Lotte Mega Gift 5 event, guests can also enjoy five addit

Just about two days after Girls’ Generation’s YoonA confirmed that she has been dating TV personality Lee Seung-gi for the past few months, her fellow member Sooyoung revealed her own relationship with actor Jung Kyung-ho.Sooyoung’s agency SM Entertainment confirmed to a local media outlet on Friday that the girl group member and Jung ― who had been close friends since 2012 ― have dated since last year. Rumors of the two dating have previously floated in the local media, one time in February and

Those who have seen actor Han Ji-sang on stage, especially as Judas in “Jesus Christ Superstar” or the wacky hero in “The Scarlet Pimpernel,” would be surprised to discover that Han calls himself an “extreme introvert.”“One of the things that I hated the most while attending a theater school was having to give a speech about myself,” Han said in an interview with The Korea Herald in Seoul, Friday. “I simply did not know what to say. It would be just really awkward. I find it very challenging to

The National Dance Company of Korea is keeping up its efforts to reinvent its performances by making them more approachable and new.Following last year’s “Scent of Ink,” its collaboration with celebrated fashion designer Jung Ku-ho, the troupe ― known for specializing in traditional Korean dance ― is showcasing three experimental projects this month.“Scent of Ink” was a tasteful, modern interpretation of traditional dance, featuring the “four noble ones,” the four plants believed to epitomize Ko

From the first pages of his debut book, “The Faithful Scribe,” journalist Shahan Mufti gets personal.He imagines a dinner party in which you, the reader, ask where he’s from, and after hearing him reply, “Pakistan,” you ask him why the country is such a mess.Mufti, who grew up in the United States and Pakistan, attempts to answer that question and many more by probing his own family history to better understand the roots of the world’s first Islamic democracy.He artfully weaves stories of his an

Feeling overwhelmed by all the, you know, cheer in the air this time of year? Wishing for a little doom, a little gloom to balance things out? Have I got the book for you, and I mean that in a most complimentary way to the author.Koren Zailckas’ fiercely disturbing “Mother, Mother” is, under no circumstances, a book that you should read when you’re feeling depressed, or you’re kind of hating your mom, or you feel the need for some light chick-lit. It is, however, one of the most profound and ins

Earlier this month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that 144 million people were employed in the United States ― people who are making a living, keeping the country going, stoking the engine of the economy and living their lives in the American story.All of this hyperbole is to lead up to the news that the Labor Department, in partnership with the Center for the Book in the Library of Congress, has created a new section on its website to list books that have shaped work in America.The bo

Though director Yang Woo-seok’s latest film “The Attorney” specifies in the very beginning that it is “fiction,” it is hard to separate Song Woo-seok, the protagonist of the film and a fierce Busan-based lawyer in the 1980s, and the late President Roh Moo-hyun. Starring Song Kang-ho, of “Snowpiercer” and “The Face Reader,” who is undoubtedly one of the most famed and respected actors today, the film, which hit its 5 million viewers mark in just 12 days of its release on Monday, revisits Roh’s ea

The lobby of Imperial Palace SeoulOn top of being a landmark in the city, Imperial Palace Seoul aims to offer the best environment and services for working professionals from home and abroad. The hotel celebrates its 24th anniversary this year.Located in the central business and cultural district of Gangnam in southern Seoul, the property, known as one of the best business hotels in Korea, contains 430 guest rooms and suites including the Royal Suite as well as two-storied duplex suites. Each gu

Back in April, as we were wandering the L.A. neighborhood in which he was raised, Walter Mosley mentioned “Parishioner,” a novel that he had published as an e-book original. If you don’t know it, that’s not surprising; it was a small book, sneaked out (if such a thing is possible) in the months leading up to the release of the Easy Rawlins-resurrecting “Little Green.”When I asked why he’d chosen to do it as an e-book, he gave a little shrug. “Oh, you know,” he said. “I write so much, I write so

DrawingsBy Sylvia Plath(Harper)The most striking thing about the 44 images reproduced in Sylvia Plath’s “Drawings” may be how unpopulated they are.Produced during the two years the poet spent on a Fulbright fellowship at Cambridge ― the same period in which she met and married (secretly, at first) Ted Hughes ― this material evokes a world bound almost entirely by objects: boats, shoes, rooftops, all of it detailed, shadowed, but at the same time more than a little bit removed.That’s not entirely

“A poem is not so much read as navigated,” Nikki Giovanni writes in “Chasing Utopia.” “We go from point to point discovering a new horizon, a shift of light or laughter, an exhilaration of newness that we had missed before. Even familiar, or perhaps especially familiar, poems bring the excitement of first nighters, first encounters, first love ... when viewed and reviewed.”That’s a pretty good description of what Giovanni is up to in this book, marked by her signature blend of toughness and acce

The Korean film industry attained a meaningful achievement this year by selling more than 200 million tickets for the first time in history. Following this year’s success, the country’s major film producers recently announced their lineups for 2014. And it seems like local moviegoers will be bombarded with period blockbusters next year.Some of the most anticipated films of 2014 are period dramas, including Cannes-winning actress Jeon Do-yeon’s upcoming martial arts flick “Hyeopnyeo” and “Battle

Chinese actress Tang Wei has a huge fan base in Korea, especially after the release of her 2010 film “Late Autumn,” in which she co-starred with popular Korean actor Hyun Bin.In the romance film directed by Korean director Kim Tae-yong ― the film is also a remake of Korean director Lee Man-hee’s iconic 1966 movie of the same title ― Tang starred as Anna, a Chinese-American prisoner who murdered her husband years ago and is released from jail for three days to attend her mother’s funeral in Seatt

The English translation of Korean author Bae Su-ah’s short story “Highway with Green Apples” has been published in “Day One,” Amazon’s digital literary journal dedicated to short fiction and poetry from emerging writers, as well as translations of non-English literature.It is the first time that a Korean work of fiction has been published in the journal, according to the Literature Translation Institute of Korea.Born in Seoul in 1965, Bae is considered one of the most unconventional writers in K