Genre Fiction
![Min Jin Lee - [object Object] author](https://res.cloudinary.com/readsomnia/image/upload/authors/a_a_min_jin_lee.jpg)
Pachinko (National Book Award Finalist)
A New York Times Top Ten Book of the Year and National Book Award finalist, Pachinko is an "extraordinary epic" of four generations of a poor Korean immigrant family as they fight to control their destiny in 20th-century Japan (San Francisco Chronicle).
NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2017 * A USA TODAY TOP TEN OF 2017 * JULY PICK FOR THE PBS NEWSHOUR-NEW YORK TIMES BOOK CLUB NOW READ THIS * FINALIST FOR THE 2018DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE* WINNER OF THE MEDICI BOOK CLUB PRIZE
Roxane Gay's Favorite Book of 2017, Washington Post
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER * USA TODAY BESTSELLER * WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER * WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER
"There could only be a few winners, and a lot of losers. And yet we played on, because we had hope that we might be the lucky ones."
In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant--and that her lover is married--she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.
Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters--strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis--survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.
*Includes reading group guide*
NEW YORK TIMES NOTABLE BOOK OF 2017 * A USA TODAY TOP TEN OF 2017 * JULY PICK FOR THE PBS NEWSHOUR-NEW YORK TIMES BOOK CLUB NOW READ THIS * FINALIST FOR THE 2018DAYTON LITERARY PEACE PRIZE* WINNER OF THE MEDICI BOOK CLUB PRIZE
Roxane Gay's Favorite Book of 2017, Washington Post
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER * #1 BOSTON GLOBE BESTSELLER * USA TODAY BESTSELLER * WALL STREET JOURNAL BESTSELLER * WASHINGTON POST BESTSELLER
"There could only be a few winners, and a lot of losers. And yet we played on, because we had hope that we might be the lucky ones."
In the early 1900s, teenaged Sunja, the adored daughter of a crippled fisherman, falls for a wealthy stranger at the seashore near her home in Korea. He promises her the world, but when she discovers she is pregnant--and that her lover is married--she refuses to be bought. Instead, she accepts an offer of marriage from a gentle, sickly minister passing through on his way to Japan. But her decision to abandon her home, and to reject her son's powerful father, sets off a dramatic saga that will echo down through the generations.
Richly told and profoundly moving, Pachinko is a story of love, sacrifice, ambition, and loyalty. From bustling street markets to the halls of Japan's finest universities to the pachinko parlors of the criminal underworld, Lee's complex and passionate characters--strong, stubborn women, devoted sisters and sons, fathers shaken by moral crisis--survive and thrive against the indifferent arc of history.
*Includes reading group guide*
Editorial Reviews
One of Buzzfeed's "32 Most Exciting Books Coming In 2017"
Included in The Millions' "Most Anticipated: The Great 2017 Book Preview"
One of Elle's "25 Most Anticipated Books by Women for 2017"
BBC: "Ten Books to Read in 2017"
One of BookRiot's "Most Anticipated Books of 2017"
One of Nylon's "50 Books We Can't Wait To Read In 2017"
One of Entertainment Weekly's Best New Books
One of BookBub's 22 Most Anticipated Book Club Reads of 2017
"Stunning... Despite the compelling sweep of time and history, it is the characters and their tumultuous lives that propel the narrative... A compassionate, clear gaze at the chaotic landscape of life itself. In this haunting epic tale, no one story seems too minor to be briefly illuminated. Lee suggests that behind the facades of wildly different people lie countless private desires, hopes and miseries, if we have the patience and compassion to look and listen."―The New York Times Book Review
"In 1930s Korea, an earnest young woman, abandoned by the lover who has gotten her pregnant, enters into a marriage of convenience that will take her to a new life in Japan. Thus begins Lee's luminous new novel PACHINKO--a powerful meditation on what immigrants sacrifice to achieve a home in the world. PACHINKO confirms Lee's place among our finest novelists."―Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and This Is How You Lose Her
"A deep, broad, addictive history of a Korean family in Japan enduring and prospering through the 20th century."―David Mitchell, Guardian, New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks
"Astounding. The sweep of Dickens and Tolstoy applied to a 20th century Korean family in Japan. Min Jin Lee's PACHINKO tackles all the stuff most good novels do-family, love, cabbage-but it also asks questions that have never been more timely. What does it mean to be part of a nation? And what can one do to escape its tight, painful, familiar bonds?"―Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author of Little Failure and Super Sad True Love Story
Included in The Millions' "Most Anticipated: The Great 2017 Book Preview"
One of Elle's "25 Most Anticipated Books by Women for 2017"
BBC: "Ten Books to Read in 2017"
One of BookRiot's "Most Anticipated Books of 2017"
One of Nylon's "50 Books We Can't Wait To Read In 2017"
One of Entertainment Weekly's Best New Books
One of BookBub's 22 Most Anticipated Book Club Reads of 2017
"Stunning... Despite the compelling sweep of time and history, it is the characters and their tumultuous lives that propel the narrative... A compassionate, clear gaze at the chaotic landscape of life itself. In this haunting epic tale, no one story seems too minor to be briefly illuminated. Lee suggests that behind the facades of wildly different people lie countless private desires, hopes and miseries, if we have the patience and compassion to look and listen."―The New York Times Book Review
"In 1930s Korea, an earnest young woman, abandoned by the lover who has gotten her pregnant, enters into a marriage of convenience that will take her to a new life in Japan. Thus begins Lee's luminous new novel PACHINKO--a powerful meditation on what immigrants sacrifice to achieve a home in the world. PACHINKO confirms Lee's place among our finest novelists."―Junot Díaz, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao and This Is How You Lose Her
"A deep, broad, addictive history of a Korean family in Japan enduring and prospering through the 20th century."―David Mitchell, Guardian, New York Times bestselling author of The Bone Clocks
"Astounding. The sweep of Dickens and Tolstoy applied to a 20th century Korean family in Japan. Min Jin Lee's PACHINKO tackles all the stuff most good novels do-family, love, cabbage-but it also asks questions that have never been more timely. What does it mean to be part of a nation? And what can one do to escape its tight, painful, familiar bonds?"―Gary Shteyngart, New York Times bestselling author of Little Failure and Super Sad True Love Story
Readers Top Reviews
Janie U
This novel follows a Korean family through three generations and their search to be able to belong somewhere. Everything starts well by engaging the sympathies of the reader. The scene is set concisely, giving the images of life in the small town without too much of the historical background. Gradually the plot evolves throughout the rest of the book, showing the characters moving through their lives, struggling with their individual interpretations of identity. There is plenty of cultural information that is fascinating, in particular the complicated relationship between Korea and Japan. leading into the implications to the family of the Korean divide. World events move at a great pace but, in this story, we see the impact on the people. The flow of the novel is variable though. I found the start quite slow and it took me some time to get into the swing of reading, finding many excuses to put it down. I was much more engaged in the middle section but then it slowed again towards the end where there was one too many characters introduced. Generations merge and there are no clear switched from one to the next which had a very natural feel about it. Finally the end of the book approached and it was thoughtful, revisiting emotions stirred earlier in the story along with tying up many loose ends.
Pu55ycat1CamilleJ
For some reason I'm absolutely fascinated by Japan & asian culture so I love reading novels set there. At first I was gripped by this book as it did give a real taste of history & life set in this part of the world... However, by about half way through I was starting to get bored.. The author kept introducing more & more characters whose names & family lineage were very difficult to keep up with & the story was going nowhere. It was kind of interesting to see the history & development of a whole family & Korean & Japanese culture over several generations I just wish there had been a little bit more to the story; each time I became invested in a particular branch of the family story it would change & move onto another & this left a quite dissatisfied feeling...
HartyPu55ycat1Cam
I heard Min Jin Lee interviewed and quickly realised that there was a Korean/Japanese history about which I knew virtually nothing. I understood from the interview that this book took a very long time to write and that it was impeccably researched, so thought it deserved reading. There are a considerable number of characters with Korean and Japanese names and lots of words that need looking up in order to get their full meaning. I didn't even know what 'Pachinko' was and if you don't know you won't find out until about half way through the book - unless you look it up first. These are not criticisms, but I do feel that this book needs a fairly academic approach to get the most out of it. It is not an easy read. Following the lives and 'fortunes' of a Korean family who 'escape' to Japan in order to avoid starvation, it is a story of persecution and prejudice on many levels. If you like a feel-good story this is not for you, but if you can take a big dose of reality and admire the qualities of human spirit and tenacity in adversity then you will find this book both informative and deeply moving.
bookwormEllieFHar
I'm joining the smallish percent who found this novel far less engaging than the reviews and accolades would suggest. I didn't dislike it and I read the entire book but I found it slow-going and very uneven, both in the writing, characterization and plotting. I remain surprised this was a National Book Award nominee. As is the case with many generational sagas, it often had the feel of an outline that was filled in episodically. In some chapters, we got tremendous detail; in others, months and years of action were compressed into a few paragraphs. The themes of change, of discrimination and hatred, of the slow destruction of key aspects of Japanese/Asian society, of women's and men's roles, of sex, of work and the identify work confers, were all interesting, but as with so much of this novel, they were addressed unevenly. Some characters were fleshed out in great detail; others with broad brush strokes. In general, Lee does way better with women than men, but I never really felt I "knew" any of the characters beyond Sunja and to some extent Kyunghee. As we moved into the later years and second and third generations, the characters felt more like caricatures -- representing "types" rather than three-dimensional people. The style, as others have noted, is simple and spare. Sometimes that works well, and there are sections that truly resonated, where I stopped in admiration of a well-crafted sentence or metaphor. But just as frequently, I found sections that were awkward and definitely seemed to be written by someone for whom English was a second language. The sweep of the novel, while impressive, had similar inconsistencies. In some parts, we moved from month to month or year to year and then suddenly jumped several years. This added to the sense we were following an outline rather than a fleshed-out novel. Given Japan's role in the war, for example, it was strange how little of that came through. Even the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki seemed like a footnote; there was virtually nothing about the level of devastation, despite Yoseb's being caught in the Nagasaki bombing and badly burnt and wounded. And by the time we got to the 1990s, it felt as though Lee were racing to finish, sending characters off to die or disappear, with one of the most abrupt endings I've ever read.
