Books like “Pachinko”

What to read after “Pachinko” by Min Jin Lee: a list matched by tropes, mood and atmosphere. Under each book you will see what it has in common.

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1
A Thousand Splendid Suns
Khaled Hosseini · 2007
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
Mariam and Laila, born a generation apart in Afghanistan, are forced together by marriage to the same violent man. Through decades of war and loss, the two women become each other's only home and take great risks for the chance of a different life.
2
Kristin Lavransdatter
Sigrid Undset · 1920
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
- Coming of Age
In fourteenth-century Norway the headstrong Kristin defies her devout father to marry the charming Erlend. Their life together brings seven sons, guilt and hardship as the world shifts around them and her early choices return to weigh on her.
3
All the Light We Cannot See
Anthony Doerr · 2014
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
During the German occupation of France, a blind girl and her father flee Paris for the walled city of Saint-Malo, carrying a valuable jewel. In Germany, an orphan with a gift for radio repairs is drawn into the war machine. Their separate paths move slowly toward the same besieged town in August 1944.
4
The Remains of the Day
Kazuo Ishiguro · 1989
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
- War Fiction
Stevens, a butler at an English country house, sets out on a motoring trip in 1956 and looks back over decades of service. Recalling his employer's political misjudgements and his own missed chances with the housekeeper, he begins to see what a life given to duty has cost him.
5
The Book Thief
Markus Zusak · 2005
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
Narrated by Death, the story follows Liesel Meminger, a girl sent to live with a foster family in Nazi Germany. She steals books, shares them with a Jewish man hiding in the basement, and grows up amid bombs, loss and small acts of kindness.
6
All Quiet on the Western Front
Erich Maria Remarque · 1929
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
Paul Baumer and his classmates enlist in the German army straight from school, urged on by a patriotic teacher. Trench life strips away everything they were taught, and the friends cling to each other as the war grinds them down.
7
The Catcher in the Rye
J. D. Salinger · 1951
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
Expelled from prep school and drifting through New York before going home, teenager Holden Caulfield narrates a few days of restless encounters. He rails against adults he calls phonies while quietly grieving a brother and his own place in the world.
8
Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe · 1958
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
Okonkwo, a respected wrestler and farmer in a Nigerian village, builds his standing on a fear of appearing weak. When he is exiled and, years later, British missionaries and officials arrive, the customs that shaped him begin to collapse around him and his people.
9
Schindler's Ark
Thomas Keneally · 1982
Same genre: “Historical fiction”
- War Fiction
- Survival
In German-occupied Poland, Oskar Schindler, a Czech businessman and opportunist, employs Jewish workers in his factory. As the war turns and deportations intensify, he uses his wealth and connections to shield them, at growing personal risk.
10
A Thousand Ships
Natalie Haynes · 2019
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
- Melancholic
- War Fiction
The Trojan War told through its women: queens, captives, mothers and goddesses who wait, grieve and endure while the men fight and die. From the Greek camp to the burning city, their voices answer the old story that left them out.
11
Their Eyes Were Watching God
Zora Neale Hurston · 1937
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
Janie Crawford tells her friend the story of her life: three marriages, a long search for love and independence, and the storm that changes everything. Set in the Black towns and farms of Florida, the novel follows her from a silent girl to a woman who speaks for herself.
12
The Bell Jar
Sylvia Plath · 1963
Similar atmosphere: “Melancholic”
Esther Greenwood wins a magazine internship in New York, but the city and the pressure of her bright future leave her feeling hollow. Back home, her mind begins to slip and she is drawn toward a darkness she cannot name, even as she tries to recover.