Essay book in Korea on uncertain talent: Goraein Small Sketchbook

The busier and more exhausted I am, the better it feels to look out the window once, let out a breath, and read a good book. My mood lifts and it feels like my mental energy gets recharged. That was exactly what Goraein’s Brunch Book Award-winning Small Sketchbook was like.... I recommend this essay book! Small Sketchbook!

The sky has been so clear and beautiful lately, and this is a book that suits that sky perfectly. It felt as if it gently soothed my own heart too, which made me like it even more.

What kind of essay is Small Sketchbook?

This essay book records the choice to leave school at 18—a choice different from everyone else’s—the reflections on memories with the writer’s late father, and the life and travels that followed, along with dreams newly connected to an old heart. I recommend it because, although it is an essay comic written in such an understated way, it leaves a deep resonance. Since it is not just printed text, it is even nicer to look at, and because it is written so accessibly, I liked it all the more.

Reading an essay book like this even made me want to start writing properly again.

The introduction and the road taken off course

The book opens with an introduction.

The road taken off course!

Encouragement for worried adults

An essay book that begins with an ambiguous everyday life.

If you are an adult who wants to do something but is full of nothing but worries and concerns, I think this book will definitely give you strength. That is one reason I recommend it, and I feel as though I received so much strength, encouragement, and support from it in so many ways. I am so grateful to the author. No wonder it was a Brunch Book Award winner.

After being discharged from military service, the author even went on a working holiday in Australia like this.

The final Part 4 that resonated most

It is okay to run away. You only live once, so as long as it does not break the law, it is a hundred times right to live however you want. If I could go back, I would not waste time studying something I did not even want to study; I would have studied physical education, which I wanted to do. I only realized after turning 30 that I am happiest when I exercise and when I study what I want to study.

I plan to keep this book by my bedside and open it often whenever I feel depressed. The book is made up of Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4, and the final Part 4 resonated with me the most. And “uncertain talent” was truly exactly my story.

p. 220: When we are fairly good at something, yet people better at it are everywhere, and it is the only talent we have, we often call it “the curse of uncertain talent.”

Like me... ㅠㅠㅠ I was sort of good at studying, drawing, and exercise, all of them.. I took the College Scholastic Ability Test a second and third time, went around in circles, and then went to university. And after graduating, I am preparing to study something else again.

Is this right? I am truly thankful and grateful that I came across such a good essay book while I was struggling with doubts. I sleep with it by my bedside so I can read it whenever I doubt myself in the future!