5 books already read by Huh Yunjin, from LE SSERAFIM

One of the favorite pastimes of Huh Yunjinfrom LE SSERAFIM, is reading, a habit that she makes a point of putting into practice not only on her days off, but also during her busy idol routine, since she is constantly caught flipping through pages in between events, advertisements, shows and interviews while she has her makeup prepared, or while she is traveling to the next destination where she will have to perform on stage and in studios.

With this in mind, RECREIO has put together a list of five books that have already been read by Huh Yunjin; check out:

1. All About Love: New Perspectives — Bell Hooks

Published in 2000, the book “All About Love: New Perspectives”, written by Bell Hooks reflects on the different aspects of romantic love in modern society while bringing experiences from the author’s life in the thirteen chapters of the work.

Synopsis: “What is love, after all? Is this such a subjective, opaque question? For Bell Hooks, when we pulverize its meaning, we become increasingly distant from understanding it. In this book, the first volume of her Love Trilogy, the author seeks to elucidate what love really is, whether in family, romantic and friendship relationships or in religious experience. Contrary to current thinking, which so often understands love as a sign of weakness and irrationality, Bell Hooks argues that love is more than a feeling — it is an action capable of transforming the nihilism, greed and obsession with power that dominate our culture. It is through the construction of an ethic of love that we will be able to build a truly egalitarian society, based on justice and a commitment to collective well-being.”

2. Ways of Seeing — John Berger

In “Ways of Seeing”, John Berger is based on the BBC series of the same name launched in 1972 to write essays that reflect on perceptions of visual arts and how they change over the years.

Synopsis: “In these classic essays based on the English television series ‘Ways of Seeing’, broadcast in 1972, John Berger revolutionizes art criticism by pointing out the power structures present in the process of creating images. If today, fifty years after writing this book, it is still necessary to reinforce that ‘an image is the recreation or reproduction of a vision’ — or, as Djaimilia Pereira de Almeida states in her preface, that we should view ‘vision as vivification and the observation of art as parallel to the observation of life’ —, reading Berger, essential in times of propaganda everywhere, becomes more urgent than ever. The first text starts from oil painting, a technique consecrated by European art. After technical reproducibility, it became possible to see oil works outside the castles, churches and private residences for which they were once intended, and, isolated from their original context, they circulate throughout the world without being truly understood. When they were established as works of art, these works began to be interpreted — and mystified — according to assumptions such as beauty, truth and genius, which were dictated by the specific way of seeing of a social minority in power. In another essay, John Berger addresses the representation of women in Western art, understanding how in the tradition of the nude the female body became an object at the service of the male gaze. With insight, the author states that the protagonist of a nude is never shown: he is the spectator in front of the painting, for whom the ‘figures assume their nudity’. Berger also examines still lifes, which in their heyday displayed objects extorted by slave-owning factories. And he does not shy away from looking at the impact of advertising in the 20th century, exposing how it uses artistic tradition to exploit the consumerist impulses of those who observe it. Collective, emancipatory and with all the vitality of the social insurrection of the 1970s, ‘Ways of seeing’ is a treatise against the hijacking of the gaze by the image in capitalist society and a warning about non-verbal language.”

3. Everything I Know About Love — Dolly Alderton

First book by a British author Dolly Alderton‘Everything I Know About Love’ hit bookstore shelves in 2022. In 384 pages, the author tells all the romantic misadventures, discoveries, romances and friendships she experienced during her twenties.

Synopsis: “Dolly Alderton knows what she’s talking about. She survived her twenties with dignity (more or less), and anyone who has gone through (or is going through) this decisive decade of life knows that reaching thirty in one piece is quite an achievement. There are many discoveries, experiments, intense romances, robberies, epic binges, strange jobs, self-sabotage, destructive rejections, hurt feelings, humiliations and, most importantly, indispensable friends who are always there to help you get through all these things without major traumas (or almost).

The author’s debut in literature, ‘Everything I Know About Love’ follows Dolly’s journey from youth to adulthood. A kind of real-life Bridget Jones’s Diary, the book is a mix of therapy session and lots of gossip. Dolly knows how to navigate like few others between the tragic and the incredibly comical of her memories without giving us a chance to indifference, with stories that are impossible not to identify with — sometimes so insane that they could be fiction — and that brilliantly convey the true chaos of growing up.”

4. Breasts and Eggs — Mieko Kawakami

Narrating the relationship between three women, “Peitos e Ovos” is presented through the eyes of the character Natsu, a thirty-year-old aspiring writer, as well as bringing reflections on the protagonist’s sister, Makiko, and her daughter, Natsu, providing readers with a look at contemporary women’s issues. The book, released in 2023, is by the Japanese author Mieko Kawakami.

Synopsis: “On a sweltering summer day, Makiko travels from Osaka to Tokyo to visit her younger sister, Natsu, and surprises her with the news that she would like to take the opportunity to have breast augmentation surgery. Accompanied by her daughter, Midoriko, a teenager who has only communicated with her mother in writing for a few months, Makiko shares with her sister her frustration with her behavior, unaware of the suffering she goes through when she is unable to verbalize the overwhelming pressures of puberty. From the point of view of Natsu, a thirty-year-old aspiring writer haunted by the hardships she suffered in her youth, the story of these three women who come together in a poor neighborhood of Tokyo unfolds. Over the course of the few days they spend together, Midoriko’s silence will be a catalyst for each of them to face their own fears and disappointments.

Eight years after Makiko and Midoriko’s visit, on another intense summer day, Natsu — now finally established as a writer and having developed a few friendships — takes the opposite route to the first part of the book and travels back to her hometown. Immersed in doubts and confronting the anxiety of growing old alone and without children, amidst the social oppressions that surround the lives of women in Japan, she must make a decision about the direction of her own life.

One of Japan’s most acclaimed writers, Mieko Kawakami blends stylistic creativity, dark humor, and emotional depth to tell a story that revolves around contemporary femininity in the Asian country. Breasts and Eggs tells the intimate journey of three women in search of peace and a future over which they can exercise some control.”

5. The Last Breath of Life — Paul Kalanithi

Autobiographical book, ‘The Last Breath of Life’ narrates the battle against stage IV metastatic lung cancer experienced Paul Kalanithia brilliant neurosurgeon who saw his reality change drastically after discovering the disease.

The work, which in addition to narrating the experience full of doubts of Paul between exams and treatments, it brings several reflections on life, it was published in January 2016 after the death of the author, who passed away in March 2015. Kalanithi could not finish the manuscript, which had the final pages written by his wife, Lucy.