Big Library Read

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WH Tastes Like War

Big Library Read is an international reading program that connects millions of readers around the world with an eBook through public libraries. The program is facilitated by OverDrive, the leading digital reading platform for popular eBooks, audiobooks and magazines and creator of the Libby app. During the event, Alachua County Library District card holders can borrow the eBook and audiobook for free without waiting on the Libby app.

Read the Book: May 3 - May 17

The next Big Library Read title, Tastes Like War by Grace M. Cho, will be available to read digitally through Libby from May 3 to May 17. There will be no wait lists or holds during this time.

Additional 2023 Big Library Read Dates (subject to change):

  • July 13 - July 27
  • November 2 - November 16

Overdrive and the Libby app are available to card holders who reside in Alachua, Putnam and Levy counties. Don't have a card? Find out how to apply for one today!

Join the Discussion: May 17

Read the book, then participate in our discussion event.

Wednesday, May 17 at 5:30 p.m. at the Millhopper Branch

Join the discussion on social media, too, with #BigLibraryRead. Don't forget to tag the library @alachualibrary

About the Book: Tastes Like War

Finalist for the 2021 National Book Award for Nonfiction Winner of the 2022 Asian/Pacific American Award in Literature A TIME and NPR Best Book of the Year in 2021 This evocative memoir of food and family history is “somehow both mouthwatering and heartbreaking… [and] a potent personal history” (Shelf Awareness). 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. In her mother’s final years, Grace learned to cook dishes from her parent’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. “An exquisite commemoration and a potent reclamation.” —Booklist (starred review) “A wrenching, powerful account of the long-term effects of the immigrant experience.” —Kirkus Reviews

About the Author: Grace M. Cho

Grace M. Cho is the author of Tastes Like War, a 2021 National Book Awards finalist, and Haunting the Korean Diaspora: Shame, Secrecy, and the Forgotten War, which received a 2010 book award from the American Sociological Association. Her writings have appeared in journals such as the New Inquiry, Poem Memoir Story, Contexts, Gastronomica, Feminist Studies, WSQ, and Qualitative Inquiry. She is associate professor of sociology and anthropology at the College of Staten Island, CUNY.