Take a Chance Book Club: "Crying in H Mart"
Expand your Reading Horizons!
Are you interested in joining a book club but not sure what you might like to read? We are a book club that reads and discusses a different genre each month. Take a chance with us! New members are always welcome.
Join us the second Monday of the month at 6:30 p.m. at Westover Library.
REGISTRATION RECOMMENDED. By registering, you will receive event updates.
This month's genre is the Memoir and the book selection is "Crying in H Mart" by Michelle Zauner.
This program supports the Library's celebration of Asian America, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islanders Heritage Month.
2026 Reading List
- Jan 12: "The Symphony of Secrets" by Brendan Slocum (Historical Mystery)
- Feb. 9: "American Marriage" by Tayari Jones (Domestic Fiction/Epistolary)
- Mar 9: "The Bear and the Nightingale" by Katherine Arden (Fantasy/Folklore)
- Apr. 13: "Wild Dark Shore" by Charlotte McConaghy (Adventure Fiction)
- May 11: "Crying in H Mart: A Memoir" by Michelle Zauner (Memoir)
- June 8: "Strangers on a Train" by Patricia Highsmith (Classic Noir Fiction/Thriller)
- July 13: "Destiny of the Republic: a tale of madness, medicine and the murder of a president" by Candice Millard (Nonfiction/History)
- Aug 10: "Homegoing" by Yaa Gyasi (Family Saga/Historical Fiction)
A limited number of reserved print copies of the selected book will be available at Westover Library circulation desk approximately one month before the book club meeting. Books are available on a first-come, first-served basis. Patrons are also encouraged to place holds on available print or digital copies.
For more information, please call the Westover Branch Library at 703-228-5260.
- Date:
- Monday, May 11, 2026
- Time:
- 6:30pm - 7:30pm
- Location:
- Longfellow Room
- Library:
- Westover Library
- Audience:
- Events for Adults Good for Adults Age 55+
- Categories:
- Book Discussion
- Calendar:
- Arlington Public Library
About the book: From the indie rockstar of Japanese Breakfast fame, and author of the viral 2018 New Yorker essay that shares the title of this book, an unflinching, powerful memoir about growing up Korean-American, losing her mother, and forging her own identity. In this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance, Michelle Zauner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up the only Asian-American kid at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother's particular, high expectations of her; of a painful adolescence (; of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment in Seoul, where she and her mother would bond, late at night, over heaping plates of food. As she grew up, moving to the east coast for college, finding work in the restaurant industry, performing gigs with her fledgling band--and meeting the man who would become her husband--her Koreanness began to feel ever more distant, even as she found the life she wanted to live. It was her mother's diagnosis of terminal pancreatic cancer, when Michelle was twenty-five, that forced a reckoning with her identity and brought her to reclaim the gifts of taste, language, and history her mother had given her. Vivacious and plainspoken, lyrical and honest, Michelle Zauner's voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage. Rich with intimate anecdotes that will resonate widely, and complete with family photos, Crying in H Mart is a book to cherish, share, and reread