Pachinko (National Book Award Finalist)

Author: Min Jin Lee
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
ISBN: 1455563919
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 604

Book Description
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*

The Valley of Amazement

Author: Amy Tan
Publisher: Harper Collins
ISBN: 006210733X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 422

Book Description
Amy Tan’s The Valley of Amazement is a sweeping, evocative epic of two women’s intertwined fates and their search for identity, that moves from the lavish parlors of Shanghai courtesans to the fog-shrouded mountains of a remote Chinese village. Spanning more than forty years and two continents, The Valley of Amazement resurrects pivotal episodes in history: from the collapse of China’s last imperial dynasty, to the rise of the Republic, the explosive growth of lucrative foreign trade and anti-foreign sentiment, to the inner workings of courtesan houses and the lives of the foreign “Shanghailanders” living in the International Settlement, both erased by World War II. A deeply evocative narrative about the profound connections between mothers and daughters, The Valley of Amazement returns readers to the compelling territory of Amy Tan’s The Joy Luck Club. With her characteristic insight and humor, she conjures a story of inherited trauma, desire and deception, and the power and stubbornness of love.

The Interpreter

Author: Suki Kim
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN: 1429923784
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 308

Book Description
A striking first novel about the dark side of the American Dream Suzy Park is a twenty-nine-year-old Korean American interpreter for the New York City court system. Young, attractive, and achingly alone, she makes a startling and ominous discovery during one court case that forever alters her family's history. Five years prior, her parents--hardworking greengrocers who forfeited personal happiness for their children's gain--were brutally murdered in an apparent robbery of their fruit and vegetable stand. Or so Suzy believed. But the glint of a new lead entices Suzy into the dangerous Korean underworld, and ultimately reveals the mystery of her parents' homicide. An auspicious debut about the myth of the model Asian citizen, The Interpreter traverses the distance between old worlds and new, poverty and privilege, language and understanding.

Free Food for Millionaires

Author: Min Jin Lee
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1786694476
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 711

Book Description
The brilliant debut novel from the New York Times-bestselling author of Pachinko. 'Ambitious, accomplished, engrossing... As easy to devour as a nineteenth-century romance.' NEW YORK TIMES Casey Han's years at Princeton have given her a refined diction, an enviable golf handicap, a popular white boyfriend and a degree in economics. The elder daughter of working-class Korean immigrants, Casey inhabits a New York a world away from that of her parents. But she has no job, and a number of bad habits. So when a chance encounter with an old friend lands her a new opportunity, she's determined to carve a space for herself in a glittering world of privilege, power, and wealth – but at what cost? As Casey navigates an uneven course of small triumphs and spectacular failures, a clash of values and ambitions plays out against the colourful backdrop of New York society, its many shades and divides. Addictively readable, Min Jin Lee's bestselling debut Free Food for Millionaires exposes the intricate layers of a community clinging to its old ways in a city packed with haves and have-nots. 'Explores the most funadmental crisis of immigrants' children: how to bridge a generation gap so wide it is measured in oceans.' Observer 'A remarkable writer.' The Times

Rainy Day Ramen and the Cosmic Pachinko

Author: Gordon Vanstone
Publisher: Monsoon Books
ISBN: 191204983X
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 313

Book Description
After three years in Japan, Fred Buchanan is broke, unemployed and engaged in a telepathic turf war with a feral cat behind an Okinawa convenience store. Thus begins his metaphysical odyssey back to Tokyo. Along the way, symbols and sages materialize in the form of a two-fingered jazz musician, the faded tattoo on an ex-yakuza lover, an odd brood of internet cafe refugees, the kite flyer of Kabukicho and Yukie, an alluring hostess with strips of delicious thigh and strange power imbued in the etched eye on her fingernail. Charging through Shinjuku’s neon jungle, enveloped in a boozy, nicotine-stained haze, past and present collide as an empty orchestra croons a slow dance of people and place, memory and madness, loss and love. All the while, Fred struggles to be an agent of his destiny and not another ball bearing bouncing through the cosmic pachinko. Rainy Day Ramen and the Cosmic Pachinko is told as a uniquely clever mix of Murakami-esque magical realism and gonzo Japan travelogue.

The Proletarian Gamble

Author: Ken C. Kawashima
Publisher: Duke University Press
ISBN: 0822392291
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 309

Book Description
Koreans constituted the largest colonial labor force in imperial Japan during the 1920s and 1930s. Caught between the Scylla of agricultural destitution in Korea and the Charybdis of industrial depression in Japan, migrant Korean peasants arrived on Japanese soil amid extreme instability in the labor and housing markets. In The Proletarian Gamble, Ken C. Kawashima maintains that contingent labor is a defining characteristic of capitalist commodity economies. He scrutinizes how the labor power of Korean workers in Japan was commodified, and how these workers both fought against the racist and contingent conditions of exchange and combated institutionalized racism. Kawashima draws on previously unseen archival materials from interwar Japan as he describes how Korean migrants struggled against various recruitment practices, unfair and discriminatory wages, sudden firings, racist housing practices, and excessive bureaucratic red tape. Demonstrating that there was no single Korean “minority,” he reveals how Koreans exploited fellow Koreans and how the stratification of their communities worked to the advantage of state and capital. However, Kawashima also describes how, when migrant workers did organize—as when they became involved in Rōsō (the largest Korean communist labor union in Japan) and in Zenkyō (the Japanese communist labor union)—their diverse struggles were united toward a common goal. In The Proletarian Gamble, his analysis of the Korean migrant workers' experiences opens into a much broader rethinking of the fundamental nature of capitalist commodity economies and the analytical categories of the proletariat, surplus populations, commodification, and state power.

The Pachinko Parlour

Author: Elisa Shua Dusapin
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781922585172
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Book Description
From the author of Winter in Sokcho, which won the 2021 National Book Award for Translated Literature. The days are beginning to draw in. The sky is dark by seven in the evening. I lie on the floor and gaze out of the window. Women's calves, men's shoes, heels trodden down by the weight of bodies borne for too long. It is summer in Tokyo. Claire finds herself dividing her time between tutoring twelve-year-old Mieko in an apartment in an abandoned hotel and lying on the floor at her grandparents: daydreaming, playing Tetris, and listening to the sounds from the street above. The heat rises; the days slip by. The plan is for Claire to visit Korea with her grandparents. They fled the civil war there over fifty years ago, along with thousands of others, and haven't been back since. When they first arrived in Japan, they opened Shiny, a pachinko parlour. Shiny is still open, drawing people in with its bright, flashing lights and promises of good fortune. And as Mieko and Claire gradually bond, their tender relationship growing, Mieko's determination to visit the pachinko parlour builds. The Pachinko Parlouris a nuanced and beguiling exploration of identity and otherness, unspoken histories, and the loneliness you can feel within a family. Crisp and enigmatic, Shua Dusapin's writing glows with intelligence.

The Girl He Took (A Paige King FBI Suspense Thriller—Book 3)

Author: Blake Pierce
Publisher: Blake Pierce
ISBN: 1094376167
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 267

Book Description
Paige King, a Ph.D. in forensic psychology and a new arrival at the FBI’s elite BAU unit, has an uncanny ability to enter serial killers’ minds. She has seen the worst of the worst—but when a new serial killer strikes, victims turning up dead with magic tricks left at the scenes, Paige is baffled. What could the meaning be behind these macabre hints? “A masterpiece of thriller and mystery.” —Books and Movie Reviews, Roberto Mattos (re Once Gone) THE GIRL HE TOOK is book #3 in a new series by #1 bestselling and critically acclaimed mystery and suspense author Blake Pierce. Up against her most challenging case yet, Paige must use her encyclopedic knowledge to decode the meaning of the strange magic clues. Can she discover what the killer wants, and why? Or by the time she figures it out, will it be too late? A complex psychological crime thriller full of twists and turns and packed with heart-pounding suspense, the PAIGE KING mystery series will make you fall in love with a brilliant new female protagonist and keep you turning pages late into the night. Books #4-#8 are also available! “An edge of your seat thriller in a new series that keeps you turning pages! ...So many twists, turns and red herrings… I can't wait to see what happens next.” —Reader review (Her Last Wish) “A strong, complex story about two FBI agents trying to stop a serial killer. If you want an author to capture your attention and have you guessing, yet trying to put the pieces together, Pierce is your author!” —Reader review (Her Last Wish) “A typical Blake Pierce twisting, turning, roller coaster ride suspense thriller. Will have you turning the pages to the last sentence of the last chapter!!!” —Reader review (City of Prey) “Right from the start we have an unusual protagonist that I haven't seen done in this genre before. The action is nonstop… A very atmospheric novel that will keep you turning pages well into the wee hours.” —Reader review (City of Prey) “Everything that I look for in a book… a great plot, interesting characters, and grabs your interest right away. The book moves along at a breakneck pace and stays that way until the end. Now on go I to book two!” —Reader review (Girl, Alone) “Exciting, heart pounding, edge of your seat book… a must read for mystery and suspense readers!” —Reader review (Girl, Alone)

Three Generations

Author: Yom Sang-Seop
Publisher: Archipelago
ISBN: 1935744410
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 489

Book Description
Touted as one of Korea’s most important works of fiction, Three Generations (published in 1931 as a serial in Chosun Ilbo) charts the tensions in the Jo family in 1930s Japanese occupied Seoul. Yom’s keenly observant eye reveals family tensions withprofound insight. Delving deeply into each character’s history and beliefs, he illuminates the diverse pressures and impulses driving each. This Korean classic, often compared to Junichiro Tanizaki’s The Makioka Sisters, reveals the country’s situation under Japanese rule, the traditional Korean familial structure, and the battle between the modern and the traditional. The long-awaited publication of this masterpiece is a vital addition to Korean literature in English.

The Artist Vanishes

Author: Terry Westby-Nunn
Publisher: Penguin Random House South Africa
ISBN: 1415210322
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 375

Book Description
Where is Sophie? Infamous Cape Town artist Sophie Tugiers has been missing for several years. Her mysterious disappearance caused a brief ripple before dissolving into a distant media memory. Sophie’s controversial art alienated many people: those who didn’t consider her a sell-out thought her last exhibition was sadistic – after all, one of her experimental participants committed suicide. James Dempster is a jaded filmmaker with a whiskey problem. Following his acrimonious divorce, he needs a project to relaunch his stalled career. When he discovers he’s living in the flat Sophie once rented, he is drawn into her sinister tale. What really happened to Sophie? What are her friends and enemies hiding? After James’s flat is ransacked and his research stolen, he realises unearthing the truth could lead not to his redemption but to his demise. The Artist Vanishes explores ambition and success, guilt and responsibility, the ethics around animal research, and art’s lasting impact on those it touches.