For the next few weeks, On My Mind will be sharing conversations from the Diane Rehm Book Club and Author Interview series. First up is novelist Min Jin Lee.

Diane selected Lee’s novel “Pachinko” as this year’s January read. It tells a generation spanning story that begins in 1910 after Japan’s invasion of Korea.

As part of the book club event Diane first welcomed a panel of guests to discuss the novel – and the history that inspired it. You can find a recording of that here. Then she sat down with Min Jin Lee to hear about how a near fatal illness helped launch her writing career – and the decades of research that went into writing “Pachinko.”