[Books of the Week] A Planet Without Oil and More

A Planet Without Oil

If there were enough oil left for 100 years, could we rest easy for the next 100? Yang Sooyoung, former president of Korea National Oil Corporation, who spent 40 years in the field of resource development, answers, "No." It is impossible to extract all the oil buried underground. The recovery rate at conventional oil fields is generally only 20-40%. Indonesia, once Asia's largest oil-producing country, became a net oil importer in 2004. Analyzing the energy supply and demand structures of 12 countries, the author warns that supply shortages could arrive before oil is completely depleted.

The book examines why oil consumption does not easily decline even as electric vehicles become more common, why Germany, a leader in renewable energy, relied on Russian natural gas, and the technological limitations facing Australia as it seeks to export hydrogen. Once sold, cars remain on the road for more than 10 years, while aircraft, ships, and high-temperature industrial processes are difficult to replace with electric power. When energy supplies become scarce, even those with money may be unable to obtain oil, and energy may have to be prioritized for essential sectors such as healthcare and agriculture. This book challenges the optimism that technological innovation will overcome the finite nature of resources. (Written by Yang Sooyoung | RH Korea)

The Giver: Chuck Feeney

In 1996, a deal to sell DFS, a global duty-free retail company, was finalized. At the transaction, which valued the company at $4.2 billion, founder Chuck Feeney wore a cheap black plastic watch. Even after becoming a billionaire, he flew economy class and insisted on living frugally. After serving in the Korean War, Feeney enrolled at Cornell University on a scholarship for veterans. As a young man, he earned his living selling sandwiches. Recognizing the purchasing power of Japanese tourists following the liberalization of overseas travel in 1964, he built a duty-free empire based in Hawaii and Hong Kong.

His true ambition went beyond becoming rich. At 53, he gave nearly all his wealth to a charitable foundation and donated about 10 trillion won over 35 years. Because he kept his philanthropy strictly secret, by the time Forbes named him the 23rd-richest person in the United States, he had already given away most of his fortune. He gave substantial support to universities, medical institutions, and research centers, yet never wanted a monument bearing his name. Irish journalist Conor O'Clery traces Feeney's business success, conflicts with his partners, and secretive philanthropy. The book invites readers to reconsider a person's life not by how much wealth they accumulated, but by how well they let it go. (Written by Conor O'Clery | Translated by Kim Jeonga | Forest Books)

The Money Issue Vol. 1: A Life for One

Would one-quarter of the living expenses of a four-person household be enough for a single-person household? Would earning an annual salary of 100 million won make you happy? Why do we keep making the same choice to take a taxi after working late, even when we know it's wasteful? The Money Issue, a lifestyle magazine launched by financial platform Toss, expands questions about money into questions about life. The theme of its first issue is "A Life for One." It explores 27 questions, from managing the assets needed to support yourself to work and happiness, consumption and personal tastes.

Economic media outlet UPPITY examines why the principles of money management break down in everyday life, while trend media outlet CAREET analyzes how people in their 20s and 30s manage their assets. Stand-up comedian Won Soyoon shares her experience of choosing to quit her job so she could focus on what she loves, and astronomer Lee Juwon discusses the meaning of one person's life in the vast universe. The issue also asks whether reducing commuting time makes people happier and what humans will do if artificial intelligence (AI) takes over their work. The message running through it is that a person's life cannot be judged by their bank balance alone, and that managing money well ultimately means knowing what kind of life you want. (Compiled by Toss | Viva Republica)

The Next Dollar

Some countries can print as much money as they want and the world will still buy it, while in others, even a small increase in the money supply sends exchange rates soaring. What accounts for this difference? Hong Ikhee, a researcher in economic history, argues that money's essence lies in the trust shared by governments and markets. In 1971, the United States ended the convertibility of the dollar into gold, yet the dollar retained its status as the world's reserve currency without being backed by a tangible asset. This was because oil and commodity trading, as well as international payment networks, revolved around the dollar. But that order has begun to show cracks as U.S. debt has grown and countries that witnessed Russia's dollar assets being frozen have turned to gold and alternative payment networks.

The author focuses not on the dollar's decline but on its transformation. Stablecoins pegged to the dollar may look like a new form of money that bypasses the existing financial system. But because issuers hold U.S. Treasuries as reserve assets, stablecoins could instead strengthen the dollar's dominance. The book also analyzes Bitcoin's limit of 21 million coins, the surveillance potential of central bank digital currencies (CBDCs), and BRICS countries' efforts to move away from the dollar. Rather than a single currency replacing the dollar, the author expects an era in which multiple currencies and payment networks coexist. The book emphasizes that before deciding where to invest money, we must understand what underpins its value. (Written by Hong Ikhee | Gimmyoung Publishers)

Sugar Generation

In 2039, sugar has replaced oil as a fuel. As oil prices soar amid a war in the Middle East, countries turn to sugarcane, but an epidemic spreads through the plantations, driving sugar prices up as well. People begin consuming cheap alternative sweeteners, and a few years later, a shocking study is published: sweeteners accumulating in the body disrupt reproductive hormones. When one in three women of childbearing age worldwide develops an ovulatory disorder, the state begins managing even schoolgirls' eggs. This is the debut novel by Park Somin, who has studied climate change and food security and draws on her own experience battling illness.

At the heart of this disaster are three women from the same family. Lee Jin, who developed lymphoma at 16 and stopped menstruating afterward, works at a fertility clinic. Since undergoing chemotherapy, she cannot even stand the sweet smell of sweeteners, but her mother runs a supermarket that sells sweetened foods. Her younger sister, Lee Sol, wants to abandon her physical body and leave for a virtual world called Homeland. The conflict between a state that controls women's bodies in the name of maintaining the birth rate and a family whose members make different choices to survive unfolds in parallel. The novel's opening image, in which a banana begins to rot just as it becomes sweetest, is a metaphor that runs throughout the work. It depicts the paradox of technologies created for abundance destroying the human body. (Written by Park Somin | Hubble)

Island

There are islands between people. Jeong Hyeonjong, whose two-line poem about wanting to go there has stayed in the hearts of countless readers, is one of Korea's most beloved poets. Island, a collection of his representative poems, has been published. It brings together poems written over more than half a century since his debut in 1965, including "The Visitor," "Like a Ball That Bounces Even When It Falls," and "Every Moment Is a Flower Bud." The book also includes drawings by the poet and poems written in his own hand with a fountain pen. It captures in one volume a poetic journey that draws out the distance between people, the life within things, and joy that endures even amid suffering.

In the poet's eyes, even an acorn falling is no ordinary event. In "Greetings," when an acorn falls from a tree and rolls away, he turns back, wondering how the tree is doing. In "People Bloom into a Landscape," he sees ordinary moments, such as someone sitting down for tea or chatting, as beautiful scenery. In the afterword, literary critic O Saenggeun writes that Jeong's poetry has sought to offer comfort that overcomes personal pain and hardship and reaches into the souls of others. The power of Jeong's poetry lies in making us turn our attention again to people and things we have passed by without a second thought, without grand declarations about changing the world. This is also why his old poems continue to feel new across the years. (Written by Jeong Hyeonjong | Moonji Publishing)

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.