Wintertime page-turners

Curl up with a multi-generational saga or a feminist awakening.

I like bulk over winter – in food, wine, but especially books. Fat ones to fill those shorter, darker days when spirits can lag, if you let them, which is why my first choice is Pachinko by Min Jin Lee ($22.99, Head of Zeus). A sweeping multi-generational saga, it came out last year at a time I just wasn't up for close to 500 pages on the tough lives of Korean immigrants in Japan and so, like a small animal incubating an especially large egg, I tucked my copy under a blanket. Its moment has come.

I'm still in the early chapters, which confirm all the rave reviews. It starts more than 100 years ago when an unlikely couple – he carrying deformities, she just 15 – are paired by a village matchmaker. After early griefs, they produce just one glorious daughter, Sunja – clearly around whom the rest of the book will spin, exploring themes like how to find love in a country where you are despised. And what is home anyway: a place or a family? It's a classic story told at a cracking pace – with lots of gossip and cabbage thrown in.

My other hoarded treasure is Meg Wolitzer's new novel, The Female

Persuasion ($32.99, Penguin Books Australia), which I bought partly on the strength of her last, The Interestings, but mainly because I'd heard it explores the lively subject of fractious relations between feminists.

Feted 60-something Faith Frank is a pillar of the second wave, in the glammy-but-swotty Gloria Steinem mould; Greer Kadetsky is the conscientious but aimless college freshman who falls under her spell. There's also a slighted boyfriend, and a sceptical lesbian bestie. I'm expecting Wolitzer to take a knife to them all, but I'm anticipating a lively ride.