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calsfoundation@cals.org
calsfoundation@cals.org
Big Library Read for May
Big Library Read is a global book club, facilitated by OverDrive, through your library that connects readers around the world with the same ebook at the same time without any wait lists or holds. The latest book available is Tastes Like War by Grace M. Cho. You might remember her as a Library Speaker Consortium Author back in February. If you didn’t get a chance to read her book then, now is a great time! From May 3-17, CALS readers (and readers across the world!) have access to Cho’s memoir with no waits or holds. Go download the book (or audiobook) and recommend it to your friends. It’s a global bookclub and you’re invited!
(If you miss the download window, check it out here.)
About the author: Grace M. Cho grew up as the daughter of a white American merchant marine and the Korean bar hostess he met abroad. They were one of few immigrants in a xenophobic small town during the Cold War, where identity was politicized by everyday details—language, cultural references, memories, and food. When Grace was fifteen, her dynamic mother experienced the onset of schizophrenia, a condition that would continue and evolve for the rest of her life.
About the book: Part food memoir, part sociological investigation, Tastes Like War is a hybrid text about a daughter’s search through intimate and global history for the roots of her mother’s schizophrenia. In her mother’s final years, Grace learned to cook dishes from her mother’s childhood in order to invite the past into the present, and to hold space for her mother’s multiple voices at the table. And through careful listening over these shared meals, Grace discovered not only the things that broke the brilliant, complicated woman who raised her—but also the things that kept her alive.
