Review: Three Tigers, One Mountain by Michael booth

December 18, 2022 • Benjamin Keninger

A couple months ago I was interested in learning more about the socio-political relations in East Asia. While perusing for books to learn about this subject I kept seeing Three Tigers, One Mountain being highly recommended as an informative yet entertaining text. After picking up the audiobook version of the text for a few bucks I listened to it over the span of a few days. Here are my thoughts:

I will say right off the bat that this book is phenomenal. Author Michael Booth writes with a lot of humor in his sentences, and narrator Julian Elfer captures this perfectly in his vocal performance. While the book was not strictly made to be an audiobook, it contains no images or figures so this doesn't result in any issues for the listener.

The content of the book follows author Michael Booth as he travels throughout East Asia, with each prominent stop involving a recounting of East Asian history and culture relevant to the region. This results in the text taking on the form of a travelogue with periodic injections of deeper historical context, which I admit is not a style I am used to reading as I usually stick to strictly historical texts. All the same, listening to Booth describe his introductory Taekwondo lessons he took while in South Korea was amusing, as were the other countless personal anecdotal stories. More than just entertainment value, however, Booth's travel experiences also serve as a more genuine lens into the social and political atmosphere that currently exists within East Asia, and how that seems to affect everyday people living in those countries.

The only reason I might hesitate to recommend this book to people interested in the subject is that the travelogue formula, while entertaining, results in an unorthodox and shallower coverage of the topic. If you are expecting an in-depth and conventional analysis of East Asian history, you will want to look elsewhere.

All the same, Three Tigers, One Mountain deserves its reputation as a humorous and interesting book and is well worth a read (or listen).