Big Library Read: Tastes Like War

The latest Big Library Read global book club title is Tastes Like War: A Memoir by Grace M. Cho. Through May 17, this e-book is available to Stanley Community Library cardholders in your Libby app at no cost without any wait lists or holds. See discussion questions and share your thoughts with readers around the world at the digital discussion board.

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. 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.

Finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Nonfiction and winner of the 2022 Asian/Pacific American Award in Literature, this evocative memoir of food and family history is “somehow both mouthwatering and heartbreaking… [and] a potent personal history” (Shelf Awareness).

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