100 books like Pachinko

I thought I was reading a mystery thriller but found myself in a layered investigation of a family. Celeste Ng uses intrigue and family tragedy to explore parental trauma and the impacts of racism and sexism. I felt connected with every character at different points in the story, which shows how empathetically Ng told this story. She really understands the complicated dynamics of family—and all the love, yearning, and jealousy that comes with it.

All of the five or six novels of Murakami’s that I’ve read feature an introverted protagonist not quite at home in the world, someone who wonders about reality and latches on to other strange people. Norwegian Wood, named after a song by the Beatles, may be the most accessible and this-worldly of his books.  It’s a coming-of-age story about a Japanese college student who falls in love at the end of the 1960s and never quite resolves his feelings. But after you read Norwegian Wood – assuming you like it – be sure to go on to Murakami’s Kafka on the Shore and IQ84, which I feel is his masterpiece.

This contemporary, quirky tale centers around the life of Keiko, a young woman who has never done anything in a conventional way and has her mother very worried that her daughter will never find a man and settle down into a conventional life. No, Keiko’s ways of thinking are startling and odd in ways that are both amusing and somewhat horrifying, as she really does fall outside the realm of conventional thinking and socially rewarded behavior. The reader comes to love her as she grows into womanhood (and personhood) as a worker in a fast-paced convenience store, where she memorizes hundreds of products and practices behaving more “normally” by mimicking the actions and words of her co-workers. Then a man named Shiraha enters the picture, for a new twist.

Translated from Japanese, this 182-page novel originally published in 1951 is perhaps a little long to be included as a short novel, and a little old to be considered contemporary . . . but it’s a personal favorite! Both a novel and a piece of journalism, Master describes the final match of a man widely considered to be his generation’s greatest go player. Interwoven into this narrative/character study are arresting details about the game and those who have played it over the centuries. It reads so quickly, you’ll think it was only 100 pages.

What I appreciate most about David Mitchell’s novel is how he grounds the history in scenes full of well-developed characters. So, for example, we don’t begin the novel with a long note about the historical period or the lineage of the ruling class, but rather with the urgency of childbirth gone wrong in the house of a concubine in Nagasaki in 1799.

It’s from this rootedness in the sense-based that we move into a wider exploration of both geopolitics and the magical, which I absolutely fell in love with—this sense that there is an element of the supernatural at play in this otherwise very realistic historical world.

I found Count Alexander Rostov to be a fascinating character with real depth. Sentenced to house arrest for the rest of his life, he outwits his opponents at every turn. I love how he changes the lives of everyone around him, whether they are his friends or his jailers, and ultimately how he is changed by them.

I was intrigued by the title, so I had to read it. And because Trevor Noah was reading the audio version, I had to listen. His story was poignant, heartbreaking, and, at times, hilarious. I found myself literally laughing out loud. His life experience couldn’t be farther away from my own.

I learned so much about South Africa, its history, its people, and its culture. I love a good inspirational rags-to-riches story, and this book did not disappoint.  

What happens after you survive the atrocities and randomness of war? Chang-rae Lee examines the deep intricacies of this question and its ramifications, portraying three survivors (Korean War, Sino-Japan War) whose lives mesh at an orphanage somewhere in South Korea after liberation. From that common crossroad, the lives of Sylvie, a missionary wife, Hector, a G.I., and June, a Korean orphan, are forever intertwined, shadowed by pervasive doom pitted against the human need to endure. Lee’s intense focus on physicality seems to reflect the characters’ bodily will to continue life, even as their hearts are blackened by tragedy. It is an intense and absorbing read, frightening for what we do to ourselves and how, despite all the darkness and violence we create in the name of war, some continue to persist in a semblance of life, and helplessly pass along the damage of war to those they touch as they… show more.

This book will capture you with a heroine who is both irresistible and flawed, and will engross you with increasing twists in a triangle of love and sacrifice. The story explores how a fateful choice colors a decade of marriage, and challenges a young woman’s ambition already constrained by traditional Korean culture. Sam Park paints all the flavors of post-war Korea in this vivid debut, and his understanding and expression of the human heart is universal.

Caroline Kim’s The Prince of Mournful Thoughts is packed with stories that juggle humor and heartbreak. The book, set in California, Korea, and France, hosts a cast of rich and complex characters. Kim plumbs the experiences of Koreans and Korean-Americans with sensitivity and a fluidity that makes for a rich reading experience. “Lucia, Russell and Me,” one of my favorite pieces, follows an irreverent adolescent girl, whose family has just moved to America. That story, like the others, is filled with arresting details and characters that shift and change in unexpected ways. Other terrific stories are the genre-bending, historical titular story, and the futuristic piece about a suburban housewife and her therapy robot. Kim is an uncanny observer of everyday life and her way of seeing makes for gratifying reading.