"i also love modern japanese fiction! (did a special study in college.) my fave author of all time is Haruki Murakmami. (dickens ranks just below.)"

I love Murakami's Norwegian Wood.

I want to get back into the reading habit too. I still keep buying books and have a stack that's a foot high on my bedside table (Murakami's The Wind-up Bird Chronicle is in there^^) but by the time I'm done surfing the Net, watching kdramas and editing subs, it's 2 a.m. and my brain's barely functioning. I want to read more because I think my writing's deteriorating. I'm forgetting basic grammar stuff, lol.

Because I grew up reading Dickens, Austen and the rest you mentioned, I opted to do more American Lit in college. Just to widen my horizons, sort of. My favorite genre is Jewish-American and among my favorite JA authors (I have so many), Chaim Potok ranks right at the top. I loved "My Name Is Asher Lev" (has anyone else read this, btw?) so much I went out and grabbed every Potok book I could find. Right now I'm reading (revisiting actually) Timothy Mo's "Sour Sweet." I'm a Mo collector.^^

Dramabeans, please carry on writing! Korean dramas do tend to go slow in the 1st few episodes - I call it warming up. I love the 2 main actors: Kim Min Joon ( since Damo) and Kim Hyun Jun (since Glass Shoes). They have 2 ability to make their characters alive, and feel for them.

I read the spoilers in soompi for Epi 3 and 4 but am not able to watch since I'm from Malaysia.
Keep up the good work. BTW, I never miss your blog.

For those of you who are Austen fans you should check out the new ITV (UK) versions of the Austen classics - my favourite and definite recommendation is Northanger Abbey with JJ Feild as Henry. You should also glance at Mansfield Park which stars, of all people, Billie Piper as Fanny (this just didn't sit right with me somehow). I loved Pride and Prejudice (my favourite novel of all time!!!!) - both the BBC version and the Joe Wright movie with Matthew and Keira in the leads!!

As for books - what about Terry Pratchett's Discworld novels - very funny!! With these, you're putting yourself in danger of snorting in laughter on a quiet train while people around try to work out whether you have totally lost your mind or you're having some sort of a fit as you try to calm your giggles down.

And for those of you who like thrillers you can't go past Robert Ludlum - if you liked the Jason Bourne movies with Matt Damon, try reading the actual books...

merriwether - I LOVED the Baby-sitter's Club books as well - I had the board game and everything...If you like Mort, try reading the two others in the series - REAPER MAN and SOUL MUSIC and then try the The Rincewind Trilogy - SOURCERY, ERIC and INTERESTING TIMES

"Huh. Well now, this is unexpected: I did not like Episode 2."

Phew. I thought I was the only one. I liked Episode 1 a lot (heck, even starting tearing before five minutes had passed) so it was queer and unsettling that Episode 2 evoked no emotions in me. I felt oddly detached the whole time. Only the mother-daughter reunion in the closing minutes stirred me a little and I cried with relief for Insoon (and relief for myself that finally I could feel something in this episode).

I agree with you about the overacting too. The only one whose "act-y" acting I didn't mind was little Eun-seok and that's because he's so dang cute.

I was so hopeful after Episode 1. Please let Episode 3 be way better than Episode 2.

i LOVE him. i would marry him in an instant. pwahaha

Gong Yoo cant leave us....TTT____TTT...we'll miss him too much...TT___TT........

CW, couldn't stand the movie version although it was shot beautifully. I loved the sweeping shots of the moors they had. McFadyen seemed depressed rather than proud for me so I was put off through the entire movie.

Oh has anyone seen ITV's version of Persuasion? It isn't too terrible. The ages of the actors who played Anne and Captain Wentworth were much closer the novel than the BBC version from 1995. If the ages had been closer in the BBC version, I would've liked it a lot better I think. But they changed things a little at the end which drove a lot of people crazy.

I want to watch Sense and Sensibility. I tried to not fork Marianne when I read the book (I still haven't finished because of her). Jane Austen's characters do that to me but her novels are too good to put down.

I was a HUGE Babysitter's Club fan and I'm not ashamed to admit it. I was obsessed with those books and I never read anything but them when I was younger. I've moved on though, I'm reading Terry Pratchett's Mort right now and the man is absolutely hilarious. He's so witty and the language is so absurd sometimes it's funny.

Yay, there's someone who likes Austen here. Geez, I must have watched the 2005 P&P DVD almost every month the first year that it came out. It was visually scrumptious: the costumes, music, color, set. That single-take camera span was awesome. Joe Wright's version is my favorite - it's nicely acted, scripted and directed. Love the rain scene. McFadyen's voice was sublime. I didn't like the sunrise union as much as others (the ending was even worse -too saccharine), but admitted that it was lovely filmed. Besides that, I thought that both McFadyen and Knightley delivered the emotions and awkwardness of first love very well. I didn't get that heart-thumping-hand-tingling sensation from the Colin Firth's "revered" interpretation.

I think Knightley portrayed a different Lizzie than all of her predecessors. The jury is still out on whether she gave the best interpretation. IMHO, it may not be the most accurate but most age-approriate. I didn't think that her performance was Oscar- caliber but her take was in line with the young and modern interpretations by Joe Wright. I find it's less stuffy than the previous versions (sorry!). Same thoughts about McFadyen. His seemingly "wooden" performance may also be viewed as subtle acting. I've always thought that Darcy was forced into adulthood too early and that deep down, he is still a young man who is falling in love for the first time. He is socially-deficient despite being enormously wealthy.

There's something about British men. It's not like they're the greatest looking men on earth; but their wit, humour and intelligence make them quite attractive. Death at a Funeral is on my must-watch list. The British are at their best in farce (although i've heard that Mr. Darcy is no longer swoon-worthy).

I also absolutely adored Elizabeth Gaskell's North and South's series (not the Patrick Swayze 's). And it's available via Netflix. Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

#3 "Insoon will have more self-confidence like her mother". Well, whatever may happen to Insoon's sense of self-worth in coming episodes, I don't see her mother as anything like self-confident. Self-assured on the surface, sure. But a strong driver of the drama in eps3 and 4 is her deep insecurity, which is actually stronger, and a lot more well-founded, than Insoon's. As is also her guilt and self-reproach, which again has real roots deeper than anything in Insoon's personal past. The segment bridging the cliffhanger of 3-4 is all about that: and it's of particular dramatic importance that there's a phone conversation there of which the audience hears only one side (though we can guess what the other party is saying) while Insoon hears only the second part, which knocks the stuffing out of her. Had she heard the first part too, she might have reacted rather differently, though she would still have been very upset.