Pachinko

Why it's worth it

Min Jin Lee follows one poor Korean family through four generations of exile in Japan, from a seaside boarding house to the pachinko parlors of Osaka. It was a National Book Award finalist, and it's the quietest, most devastating book on this list.

Most family sagas lose you around the third generation, when the names start to blur. Lee avoids that by keeping the stakes concrete and legal. Koreans born in Japan still register as foreigners, still carry papers, still get shut out of jobs their grades earned them. The discrimination isn't background — it's the plot, and it renews itself in every generation with a new face.

Buy this one if you want history you almost certainly weren't taught. The Japanese occupation of Korea, and the communities of Koreans who stayed on in Japan afterward, get close to zero space in American classrooms. Lee delivers it through a teenage girl selling kimchi in a market and a grown son who won't say his family name out loud. You'll close the book knowing something real.

From our review of 8 historical fiction books, by Genevieve Dubois, Home & Living Expert

What we like

• +Most family sagas lose you around the third generation, when the names start to blur
• +Buy this one if you want history you almost certainly weren't taught
• +It's also the best book club book here
• +The sentences are plain on purpose

What to know

• –It's relentless. Poverty, illness, prejudice and loss arrive in steady rotation, and there's no comic pressure valve
• –The later generations get thinner