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Pleasure reading
Pleasure reading
Description
Book Introduction
A word from MD
The qualities of a good book: fun
Judge Moon Yoo-seok, an individualist, has quite universal tastes.
Because I like interesting books.
Funny books become bestsellers.
The works of Haruki Murakami and Kim Yong, as well as Slam Dunk, which the author introduces, are books that everyone has likely read at least once.
Readers who seek fun will meet Judge Moon Yoo-seok in 『Reading for Pleasure』.
December 18, 2018. Humanities PD Son Min-gyu
I didn't want to read a hard, boring book.
Reading has always been a 'fun game' for me.
Judge Moon Yoo-seok's bittersweet and delightful bookworm life!

Judge Moon Yoo-seok's new work, "Declaration of an Individualist" and "Miss Hammurabi."
This is a reading essay by a writer known as a writing judge and a renowned avid reader, and it humorously tells the story of his life as a book addict from childhood until now.
He honestly reveals his life as a bookworm, filled with excitement and joy, including the story of how he ended up reading a complete collection of Korean literature while searching for explicit scenes during his adolescence, how he entered the world of romance comics with "Glass Mask," the emotion he felt reading "Slam Dunk" during his college entrance exam preparation days, and the reason he devoured all of Kim Yong and Haruki Murakami's works.
However, I did not read any books that were hard and boring, no matter how great they seemed.
This book is about selective reading, where you only read what you want to read.


There's no need to feel intimidated by the pressure of a must-read list, nor do you need to feel anxious because you seem to be the only one who hasn't read a difficult book that everyone else seems to be reading.
“There is no such thing as a book that must be read.
“It’s not a big deal if you don’t read it.” As long as I’m happy and satisfied, that’s all that matters.
Moreover, there is so much quality and interesting content on TV and the Internet that it is impossible to judge which medium is superior.
If you still want to read, why? This is a small but crucial question posed by this book, filled with the special joy of playing with books and a love for them.
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index
prolog

Chapter 1.
The roots of individualism


Reading books as a child
The roots of individualism
"Cheoyongga" and a certain attitude toward life
Jeongdok Library Reading Class
Reading books during hormonal overload
My method for choosing books: The "Zashai Theory"
The charm of reading together
Articles that are not my taste
The longer the book, the better it was back then

Chapter 2.
Picky reading, who cares if it's a 'must-read'?


There was a time when I had to go through Lee Mun-yeol.
Fall in love with romance comics
What Slam Dunk Taught Me
Storytellers of the Continent, Kim Yong and Wi Hwa
Even reading a book can be a nuisance
Reading in college in the 80s
Now, saying 'Haruki isn't that great' is cowardly
Shinimun's broad daylight
Books and music, music and books
Do you remember Sydney Sheldon?
Picky reading method
The Difference Between TV, the Internet, and Books
What is the end of playing with books?

Chapter 3.
Let's read on

I am a human being made up of indirect experiences.
Can Shakespeare reform a criminal?
What is the most important book for legal professionals?
Atonement from a Judge's Perspective
Science fiction is not the future of humanity, but the present.
Travel, Books, and Life 1
Travel, Books, and Life 2
Finding a good space to read a book
A person with happy habits is a happy person.

Epilogue_The Value of Uselessness
main

Into the book
After reading 『The Rose of Versailles』 and 『Thermidor』, I became familiar with the history of the French Revolution, and after reading 『The Swamp of the Firebird』, I was happy to encounter the Huguenot Wars in my textbook.
I became interested in the genre of theater through 『Glass Mask』, and I have been pretending to know about ballet my whole life through 『Swan』.

I saw Hwa-baek Heo Deok-eun even after he became a judge.
Thanks to "Tazza," I was able to use technical terms like "bottleneck," "return neck," and "dark baduk" in front of the defendant in the fraud case who was trying to avoid the truth.
When I was in college, I read all of Kim Yong's martial arts novels, and when I was studying for the first round of the bar exam, it all connected to Chinese history.

There is no such thing as a book that you are required to read.
It's not a big deal if you don't read it.
Reading that doesn't mean it won't work.

If anyone needs relationships with others, whether many or few, the more free and equal those relationships are, the better.
A gathering centered around books might be a good example of this.


In Korea, it's okay to say what you like, but saying what you don't like is frowned upon with uproarious responses like, "You're like that!"

Even when writing about someone scratching your car and running away, it seems necessary to write, "The bitter back of the middle class, the ordinary face of evil, as Arendt called it."
If you want to write dead texts, you must first make conventional quotations a part of your life.

A book can be an axe, a peanut to kill time, or a sleeping pill to help you sleep.
Every book has different uses for every person.

Nevertheless, it is better to replace old problems with new ones.
It's not because there's a perfect alternative, but because correcting the wrongs that currently exist is meaningful in itself.

Before we get into the grand story, as Agwi says in the movie [Tazza], it is justice that if you get caught stealing from a gambling table, you lose your hand.
Whether it's the president, the chief justice, or whoever.

I have a good habit that I developed after watching 'Goodbye Mr. Black'.
Every time I encounter a small, enjoyable moment in life, I think, “He didn’t know yet.
I have a habit of recalling the line, “That was the happiest moment in my life.”

Everyone wants to feel special.
Me too.
But as we go through life, there are countless moments when we realize how insignificant and ordinary we are.

Everyone has deficiencies.
Not many people are cultivated enough to comfortably accept the existence of others who enjoy what they do not have.
It's not just the sight of people who exploit others and become rich through unfair means enjoying their wealth.


Infinite isn't necessarily a good thing.
It is also necessary to have the fatigue that makes you stop at the right moment.

The most important thing in the process of realizing justice is not a sense of justice.
It's the fear of making mistakes.
--- From the text

Publisher's Review
Pleasure Reading, Wandering in Search of Fun
Judge Moon Yu-seok was a book addict who had been reading books since elementary school, reading not only adult books but also advertisements and obituaries in newspapers.
When I went to my friend's house to play as a child, I would often argue with my friend who wanted to go out and play because I would look at the books on the bookshelf and read them.
Because there was a wonderful parallel world in the book, different from the shabby world surrounding me ‘here and now.’
Although it was an abridged version for children, the young boy was completely captivated by the stories in the 'Complete Collection of World Masterpieces for Boys and Girls' and searched for something to read.
When I ran out of books to read, I became anxious and impatient, so I searched every nook and cranny of the house and ended up reading Buddhist books that I had no interest in, old books full of Chinese characters, and even a cooking encyclopedia.
This was especially true in a time when there were no games or smartphones.

Even now as an adult, I follow my own method of choosing books, the "Jjashy Theory," and prioritize reading books that look interesting.
This is a method of reading a book where you start by reading the first 30 pages and if you think it's to your taste, you read it all the way through, based on the experience that a restaurant with delicious jajangmyeon, a basic side dish in Chinese restaurants, also has delicious food.
It's a possible way because I'm having fun and I'm enjoying myself, so that's enough.
Just because a book is carefully selected by an authoritative organization doesn't mean you have to read it. Furthermore, isn't reading a book out of compulsion, obligation, or guilt a truly unnecessary burden?


I honestly get curious whenever I see an elegant list of "books of life" that differentiates them by taste.
Have you ever felt your heart flutter while watching "Candy Candy" or "Goodbye Mr. Black"? Have you ever discovered life wisdom in "Slam Dunk"? Did you find the novels of Michael Crichton or Bernard Werber boring? And when you see advice or even scare tactics like, "You must read the humanities classics to succeed" or "You absolutely must read these 50 humanities classics recommended by Seoul National University for college admission," your doubts grow even more.
『Cicero's On Duty』 『Critique of Practical Reason』 『Agama Sutra』 『Upanishads』 『Yulgokmunseon』… … I briefly wondered, blasphemously, how many of the Seoul National University professors had read all 50 of these works.
I only read three books.

_From "Prologue" (page 12)

Devouring romance comics, "Slam Dunk," and Kim Yong's martial arts novels
When I was in high school, a friend lent me the comic book "Glass Mask" by chance, and that's how I entered the wide and deep world of pure love comics.
Although the story is mostly centered around romance, the world of the story, based on diverse materials and backgrounds, is more than enough to satisfy the desire for culture.
Even now, I still consider the famous lines from 『Goodbye Mr. Black』 and 『The Four Daughters of Armian』 as my philosophy of life.
During my gloomy days as a student preparing for the civil service exam, I gained the courage to live by reading "Slam Dunk" in a large comic book store that was like an opium den in Shanghai.
Even when I became a judge and tried a gambling fraud case, I benefited greatly from artist Heo Young-man's "Tazza."

I have not only read all of Kim Yong's martial arts novels, but I have also read forgeries.
Rather than the outer shell of martial arts, I was deeply drawn to the honesty shown by the characters who are broken in some way or another, and the storytelling that does not lose humor even in the midst of hardship.
This is why I consider the lonely woman Li Mak-su from 『The Return of the Condor Heroes』 to be the best among Jin Yong's characters.
But isn't it possible that the thrill of gripping, heart-pounding stories has now been handed over to TV and the Internet?


Even when faced with formidable enemies like TV and the Internet…
People say that reading is something you do when you have free time, but when you have even a little free time, you either roll around with the remote control in your hand and watch TV, or unconsciously browse internet articles or social media feeds on your smartphone.
We swim endlessly in the 'online' world where infinite choices are given.
Entertainment programs, like the daily instructors of Daechi-dong, use subtitles to tell us where to find fun, and Netflix's well-made dramas are a feast for the eyes and ears.
What about the sensational articles that abound on the Internet?
It is difficult to escape the onslaught of overwhelming sensations.
So why do I want to read books?
Because reading a book allows you to control your own pace.
You can stop reading a book.
When I come across a passage I want to savor, when I want to try to figure out the structure of the story myself, I close the book and get lost in thought.
The pleasure of reading lies in the intimate and subjective psychological processes.
A chemical reaction that creates your own private space that no one can invade.


Books are harder to start with than short videos or internet posts, and they don't have much content or are not very interesting, so they don't make you want to keep reading them habitually or addictively.
Because paper books have physical entities such as thickness and weight, you can't just sit there and stare at them indefinitely.
Infinite isn't necessarily a good thing.
It is also necessary to have the fatigue that makes you stop at the right moment.
A more important advantage is that you can watch it and then think about something else.
_From the main text (page 174)

I am a human being made up of indirect experiences.
Books teach us about people and the world we have never experienced firsthand.
A judge's job is also to read someone's edited trial records.
It is no exaggeration to say that I have spent my entire life reading the lives and thoughts of others.
However, I cannot say that I have a deep understanding of someone's life.
However, what the author considers fortunate is that he was able to broaden his range of empathy by reading about other people's lives.
There were times when empathy came as a shock that seemed to shatter my existing world, and at the very least, it made me think that I didn't want to do anything that would harm others without knowing anything.
I also came to realize that ignorance breeds fear and hatred.
That's why I developed a desire to know the true nature of the world, and why I read books that teach me about a world I didn't know about.

Living faithfully according to others, customs, orders, and organizational logic, without considering that a single word or action of ours could cause pain to someone, is the essence of the evil that has filled human history.
(…) Ordinary people who were good parents, children, and friends to some were devils to others.
Ignorance of others' perspectives is evil.
This is why I can't help but laugh when I hear Lee Kyung-kyu say, "It's scary when an ignorant person has beliefs."
_From the main text (pages 192-93)

Books Read with Judges, Books Legal Professionals Need
Reading is a deeply personal activity, but it was a book club I attended with young judges at the Incheon District Court that taught me that reading and discussing books with others can be incredibly enjoyable.
The book club, which is mainly comprised of thirty-something working mom judges who have no time to rest between raising children and working overtime, was born from the earnest desire of young judges to return to their full selves at least once a month.
Although it is a reading group for judges, the list of books was chosen to be easy to read in a relatively short period of time.
Through the group, I discovered the joy of reading together, but I also became keenly aware of the struggles of young working mother judges, and this experience became the foundation for writing "Miss Hammurabi."

As a judge, there are books I cannot just pass over.
The books that judges should read are not mystery novels.
Rather, it is the job of a judge to carefully and meticulously examine the given evidence to determine whether the process of reasoning was illegal or whether the evidence is truthful.
There are separate books required for judges.
Because it is easy for judges to believe in their own infallibility, they need books that help them achieve self-objectification.

The work of a legal professional requires objectivity.
People expect lawyers to be more objective in their work than the general public.
The problem is that many lawyers 'subjectively' believe that they are doing their job more objectively than the general public.
As the symptoms worsen, you fall into the trap of 'infallibility'.
It is the self-confidence that all humans are full of prejudices, but I alone judge without any selfish motives, based only on the law and evidence.
That's why I think that books that help with 'self-objectification' are the most necessary books for legal professionals.
_From the main text (pages 206-207)
GOODS SPECIFICS
- Date of publication: December 12, 2018
- Page count, weight, size: 264 pages | 384g | 130*200*20mm
- ISBN13: 9788954653848
- ISBN10: 8954653847

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