I'm reading Adam Johnson's The Orphan Master's Son. It's set in North Korea and it is, so far, very strange and very good—about a young man coming of age (and becoming a professional kidnapper!) in a brutal, propaganda-saturated country.

I like this quote from an interview Electric Literature did with Johnson a few months ago:

What do North Koreans make of the propaganda? Do they believe it?

Johnson is quiet for a moment. Then he says, “My suspicion is that people in North Korea know that everything is a lie, but that they have no idea what the truth is.”

I'm telling you this because Adam Johnson will be at Powell's on January 15, and perhaps you want to pick up a copy and start reading it.