Rating: 8.3/10. [WARNING: SPOILERS!] Pachinko is the name of the Japanese pinball game, where you watch metal balls tumble through a machine. It’s also the name of this novel, that traces a Korean family in Japan through four generations (Yangjin/Hoonie/Hansu -> Sunja/Isak -> Noa/Mozasu -> Solomon/Phoebe). Sunja is the first generation to immigrate to Japan…
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Memoirs of a Geisha by Arthur Golden
Rating: 8.1/10. [WARNING: SPOILERS!] This novel tells the story of the geisha Sayuri, from her childhood until her death. It pretends to be a real memoir, but it’s written by an American man. The facts are thoroughly researched, so we get a feel of what Kyoto was like before the war. Essentially, society in Japan…
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson
Rating: 7.0/10. A pretty famous crime thriller novel at about 650 pages. It was moderately interesting but took me a while to get through because I was busy with other stuff. The journalist Michael Blomkvist and detective Lisbeth Salander investigate a crime involving a disappearance of a 14 year old girl half a decade ago,…
I, Robot by Isaac Asimov
Rating: 5.8/10. This is Isaac Asimov’s collection of short stories about robots, where the three laws of robotics comes from. The laws are, in this order: (1) robots may not hurt humans through action or inaction; (2) robots must obey human orders; and (3) robots must not allow itself to be destroyed. The nine short…
Kokoro by Natsume Soseki
Rating: 8.0/10. A classic Japanese novel, written over a hundred years ago, fairly short novel but quite profound. It’s a story about friendship and loneliness, and is divided into three equal parts. The first part deals with the author and Sensei, a reserved but intellectual man. Sensei seems to be wise but doesn’t really do…
Three Body Trilogy by Liu Cixin
Rating: 8.7/10. [WARNING: SPOILERS!] Science fiction trilogy that was originally written in Chinese, and recently translated to English. It’s a hard sci-fi novel but quite good, hard to summarize because so much happened in the 3 books. I felt that the ending of the third book was a bit rushed and not satisfying. I’ll just…
The Art of War (孙子兵法) by Sun Tzu
Rating: 7.8/10. Classic treatise on war by ancient Chinese general Sun Tzu who lived in 500BC. It’s 13 short chapters, totaling about 50 pages, and can be read in 2-3 sittings. Some very famous quotes come from this book, like “if you know the enemy and yourself, you will win every battle; if you know…
The Bridge of San Luis Rey by Thornton Wilder
Rating: 6.7/10. Relatively short novel of 150 pages, won Pulitzer prize. A bridge collapses in Peru and kills 5 people, and a priest tries to piece together the lives of the victims and determine why they were chosen to die. They include an old woman whose daughter left for Spain, a twin brother grieving for…
Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
Rating: 8.3/10. First novel by Kurt Vonnegut that I enjoyed. Although only about 300 pages, it has over 100 chapters, each with 2-3 pages. The story begins with a narrator trying to write a biography of scientist Felix Hoenikker, and interviews his three children and the people who knew Felix. However, in doing so, he…
High-Rise by J. G. Ballard
Rating: 7.5/10. This is kind of a dystopian sci-fi novel. It takes place in a large futuristic apartment building with thousands of people, mostly professionals. In the beginning everyone gets along fine, but tensions arise as tenants mistreat each other. Soon elevators and electricity stop working, garbage starts piling up, and eventually the whole place…
The Art of Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein
Rating: 8.0/10. The novel is written first-person from the perspective of a dog Enzo. The dog’s owner is a racecar driver Denny Swift, and he has a daughter Zoe and a wife Eve. Eve eventually dies of brain cancer and the grandparents fight a long legal custody battle over the custody of Zoe, believing that…