CURRENTLY LISTENING (#8): IN ORDER TO LIVE by YEONMI PARK

"I inhaled books like other people breathe oxygen. I didn't just read for knowledge or pleasure, I read to live."

"We all have our own deserts. They may not be the same as my desert, but we all have to cross them to find a purpose in life and be free."

In Order to Live: Yeonmi Park's North Korean Defector Story

Facts:

Title: In Order to Live: A North Korean Girl's Journey to Freedom

Author: Yeonmi Park

Narrator: Eji Kim

Publisher: Penguin Audiobooks

Publication Date: 29th September 2015

Format: Audiobook

Time: 09 hrs and 38 mins

Genres: Nonfiction, Memoir, Autobiography...

"I couldn't imagine it was possible for something so beautiful to exist in the same world as me."

Summary: 

Yeonmi Park was not dreaming of freedom when she escaped from North Korea. She didn't even know what it meant to be free. All she knew was that she was running for her life, that if she and her family stayed behind they would die - from starvation or disease or even execution.

This book is the story of Park's struggle to survive in the darkest, most repressive country on Earth; her harrowing escape to South Korea through China's underworld of smugglers and human traffickers; and her emergence as a leading human rights activist - all before her 21st birthday.