In the winter vacation, it is too cold and snowy so we are used to lazing around in the house. This winter, why don’t you spend time leafing through the pages of a book? As you read the books, you might calmly wait for the spring semester to quickly arrive. Therefore, The Konkuk Bulletin sort out professors’ libraries for even more meaningful reading. Let’s read books while also recalling what the most memorable book in your life is.

My library is leisure space

Professor Lee Hye-soo / Department of English Language and Literature

Reading is not a must, but a spontaneous delight. I read books as if I am appreciating music or drinking a cup of tea. When I am free, I look through books that I am interested in. Gilles Deleuze, a philosopher said that people move before and after an event. Likewise, we also move before and after reading emotive books. In our ongoing lives, books let a reader meet a good person with high-quality cost-effectiveness. Besides, done alone, reading is more cozy and meaningful.

I would like to recommend “A Dusky Leaf in A Mouth” written by Ki Hyoung-do as the most cherished book in my life. I read this at my friend’s suggestion when I was a freshmen in university. Moreover, it was the posthumous book of poems most renowned in those days. Apart from its significance in the history of literature, I made a qualitative leap to see the world differently from then on. As this book has stuck in my mind all this while, his expression sometimes comes across my mind. When I could not help being muddled, this book gave me a hand. Life is not always filled with hope and is sometimes filled with melancholy. I often glance over it following the possibility of a bright future.

Golden Saying

Feeling uneasy, now I would sing about hope.

My library is a smartphone

Professor Yoon Sung-ho / Department of Systems Biotechnology

I prefer paper books, but they are inconvenient to carry. Therefore, I usually read books with my smartphone. I usually use spare or travel time for reading because it is hard for me to arrange time privately. I think reading is a secondhand experience. Humans could comprehend only the things they experienced and the world we are able to experience directly is extremely limited. However, we can broaden the width of our thought and figure out society through an indirect experience from reading.

I would like to recommend “Daily Reflections for Highly Effective People” written by Stephen Covey as the most impressive book in my life. It was introduced in a major class when I was a university student, and I read it diligently because the book’s contents were set as midterm questions. It is a classic of self-help books and was published a long time ago, but the seven habits that the book suggests are valid as ever, and I make efforts to follow these.

Golden Saying

Putting first things first means organizing and executing around your most important priorities. It is a living and being driven by the principles you value most, not by the agendas and forces surrounding you.

My library is a palette

Professor Kim Young-suk / Department of Architecture

I made the bookshelves in my library reusing timber left after an exhibit. Arranging my books by color, I could find the necessary information each time. It seems like the colors are spread over a palette. Reading is an opportunity to see another side of our lives. Moreover, for a person whose job is to study endlessly, a book gives me food for thought.

I would like to recommend “A Tale of Two Cities” written by Charles Dickens as the most valuable book in my life. It is a book I always use in my class. The history is embodied in it plainly, which helps us think deeply about urban planning. Before a revolution, the lives in Paris was unstable whereas London was changing steadily. The explanation of the book makes it easy to understand two other cities with human lives. Architecture reflects the image of the era laid upon another and it forms a city. You can read clues to why Paris and London look just as they are nowadays from the book. It has a lot of tales, so I hope you to read it someday.

Golden Saying

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair.