Staff Reviews: Books, Films, Music, and More

Circulation Manager Pam Parker recommends Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner

Dinner and a Movie? Or, Noodles and a Book? 

When she’s not fronting her indie-pop band, “Japanese Breakfast,” Michelle Zauner has a side gig. She’s an author—and Crying in H Mart (2021) is Zauner’s best-selling debut about finding solace in an unusual place, the Asian market known as H Mart.

“It’s a beautiful, holy place,” she wrote about H Mart in The New Yorker essay by the same title that spurred a book deal with Knopf publishing. The book has also been optioned as a major motion picture, and Michelle is writing the screenplay. Meanwhile, her musical career has blossomed into a third album, Jubilee (2022), which has been Grammy nominated.

The story explores the unexpected death of her mother shortly before the younger Zauner is jettisoned into pop-star status in 2014. The circumstances forced the budding musician to deal with both grief and rising fame simultaneously. 

In a reversal of heart, Michelle fully embraces her duality as Korean and American after her mother’s death. In H Mart, she reminisces about certain brands and ingredients that carry meaning and memory.

Comfort foods–specifically myriad Korean dishes–take front row during this process. Cold Radish Soup (dongchimi), spicy fried chicken (yangnyeom), kimchi (samgyupsal), and her mother’s favorite noodle soup (jjamppong) are some of the dishes that flavor her recollection of her childhood growing up in Eugene, Oregon, and visits to stay with her Korean grandmother in Seoul.

Michelle studied creative writing at Bryn Mawr, a liberal arts college for women on the East Coast. Her mother was not supportive of the choice nor of her ambitions to be a musician, and their relationship was admittedly strained. “My mother was always trying to shape me into the most perfect version of myself.” Even though her mother, Chongmi, was often critical of her daughter, Michelle recognizes that they were very close even when they disagreed.

When leaving the hometown of Eugene for college on the East Coast, Chongmi’s parting words for Michelle had been, “So you want to be a starving musician…then go live like one.” And, she did. But when Chongmi falls ill, Michelle races back to Eugene to help with her care, putting her fledgling music career on the backburner. Ironically, it is not until Chongmi’s death that her break comes as her band “Japanese Breakfast” starts to take off in popularity and commercial success.

Throughout the process that is Chongmi’s illness, Michelle fears losing her Koreaness if her mom dies. As a typical American teenager, she had aimed to fit in with the cool crowd—yet, after being bullied by a popular girl about her race, she doubled down on how not to stand out. She confesses to pretending not to have a middle name, which is Chongmi (after her mother), to play down her heritage. 

In a reversal of heart, Michelle fully embraces her duality as Korean and American after her mother’s death. In H Mart, she reminisces about certain brands and ingredients that carry meaning and memory. And, after the funeral, Michelle returns to Korea with her husband Peter for their honeymoon, a decision that seems to seal it as a place of ongoing significance to her as her mom was so hopeful for.

Crying in H Mart is a dutifully painful recounting of a young adult’s struggle to define herself in the shadow of a loved one’s terminal illness. Michelle delves into her difficult family dynamic with rare candor—at times, we wonder how she manages to overcome the challenges. A healthy serving of Chongmi’s determination plays a role. But it’s the daughter’s growing wisdom and self-confidence that carry her through and give her the boost to a happiness on her own terms.

Buffy McDonald, Reference Librarian, recommends You Need a Budget by Jesse Mecham.

As the holiday season draws near, it is a good time to take stock and think of the things you are grateful for: relationships you have, goals you’ve accomplished, etc. Maybe a personal financial plan or savings goals aren’t at the top of your list, but they could be. Developing a financial plan that helps you to live the life you want could be one of the most wonderful things you do for yourself and something you will be grateful for all year long. If I have piqued your interest, consider reading You Need a Budget by Jesse Mecham.

Are your money decisions in line with the life you want to be living? What do you want your money to do for you? Thinking of budgeting in this way is a lot different than how we normally think about it. A budget is actually a way to help you plan for the things you really want – a way of letting your priorities drive your financial choices. Start now funding the life you really want by reading this book and applying its four rules.

Are your money decisions in line with the life you want to be living? 

The magic in the four rules this book describes: The first rule is to give every dollar a job.  Meaning, as soon as any money comes into your life, whether it is a paycheck or a gift, you decide where you want it to go. It could be to help pay for your mortgage or rent, food, emergency savings, or something else. So, for every dollar that you have right now, “give it a job”. Earmark it for whatever it is you want to spend it on or save it for later. 

The second rule is to embrace your true expenses. Prepare a little bit at a time. This rule includes acknowledging that the holiday season comes every year. And, if you save in monthly installments for the amount you want to spend on gifts, the money will be there when you need it. This is also true for auto maintenance and repairs, post office box rentals, clothes, athletic gear, home improvements, etc. The trick is to save money every month to cover all of your expenses – your “true expenses”.

Next comes “roll with the punches”. This is a reminder that life does not always go as planned. Maybe inflation has increased how much you spend on food and gas. Having a budget will help you see clearly how much money you have and how much you need. If you need to spend more on food and gas, then take money from lower-priority categories in your budget or consider other alternatives. This rule gives you flexibility in your spending. As long as you keep moving toward your goals, you are succeeding.

…this is also the moment you have stopped living paycheck to paycheck

Finally, the fourth rule is to age your money. (The first three rules help you to accomplish this fourth one.)  This fourth rule is the essence of saving for the unknown. Aging your money simply means that when you have money coming in, you are not spending it as quickly as maybe you once did. You are “aging it”. You are increasing the time that passes between receiving your money and spending it. And by doing so, you are increasing your financial security and flexibility. An example: you are halfway through the current month, and you have already saved all the money you will need (including true expenses) to pay next month’s bills by the first of the month. In this case, you have aged your money at least 30 days. And happily, this is also the moment you have stopped living paycheck to paycheck. Congratulations!

I hope this book will help ease some of your financial stress.  I know it has for me.

Happy reading!

Find You Need a Budget in eBook Here.

Regional History Museum Librarian, Olivia Terry, recommends The Cherry Robbers by Sarai Walker.

The Cherry Robbers by Sarai Walker tells the fictional story of Sylvia Wren, one of America’s most iconic artists of the twentieth century. Her vast talent has made her a household name, but Sylvia herself is an extremely private person, careful not to reveal any details from her past. But when a reporter starts aggressively digging into her life, Sylvia quickly unravels, unable to suppress the secrets of who she once was.

Sylvia isn’t actually Sylvia. She is Iris Chapel, the second youngest of the six Chapel sisters and the only surviving sibling. Growing up in the 1950s, Aster, Rosalind, Calla, Daphne, Iris, and Hazel, are essentially trapped in their giant Victorian family home, living with their uninvolved father and eccentric mother. The six Chapel sisters are heiresses to the Chapel rifle fortune, but this seems to cause more harm than good. Shortly into the book, it becomes clear that a few members of the family are haunted by the past in more ways than one.

When Astor, the oldest sister, becomes engaged, it seems that the way out of their monotonous lives has finally been found. But when she dies unexpectedly the very next day, and the same fate falls on the next sister to get married, it seems like something much more tragic faces the sisters than their confined lives. As Iris’s mother forebodes, something terrible is about to happen.

…it straddles the fine line between exploring the value of an independent life, and the pivotal question of the whole tale: What is a life without love?

If you are looking for a coming of age story mixed with a ghost story, complemented with  dreamy flashbacks, this book is for you. The Cherry Robbers is an absolute page-turner and offers an interesting perspective on the power dynamics in male and female relationships. It prompts readers to think deeply, while it straddles the fine line between exploring the value of an independent life, and the pivotal question of the whole tale: What is a life without love? This is a book that I couldn’t put down.

Find in in FICTION Walker here.

by Children’s Librarian Helen Morgus 

The Children’s Library houses a great collection of nonfiction for the curious of any age. And I really do mean ANY. If you are a person who likes to begin learning about a subject with an overview before going granular, children’s nonfiction is just the thing for you. Plus, bonus: illustrations! One of my favorite series within our spectacular collection is Who/What/Where/ Were?  

The Who Was books are biographies, published by the children’s division of Penguin Books and authored by various writers. We have nearly 30 of them, from King Tut to Ruth Bader Ginsburg. They are a hit with young readers, especially those who don’t usually go for “real” books (children are taught that fiction is “fake” and nonfiction is “real”).

As a librarian, I love that they are all the same size, which makes them very easy to spot on the shelves, and that they’re appended with excellent timelines and bibliographies. Each book sports a colorful caricature of its subject on the cover, and contains a profusion of black and white illustrations and diagrams. For example, Who Was King Tut? has maps, pictures of objects found in Tut’s tomb, an illustration of his mummy and its three nesting cases, and much more, all annotated. 

As all good writers of nonfiction do, the authors of the Who Was series both lay out the essentials and make room for the bizarre.

As all good writers of nonfiction do, the authors of the Who Was series both lay out the essentials and make room for the bizarre. So in King Tut’s case, there are gory details of how mummies were made, theories about how Tut died, and a chapter on Mummy Mania.  

More recently added to our collection are the What Were and Where Were (or Is/Are) volumes, covering a range of topics from ancient to modern times, and in the same format as the biographies. The Where Is titles include natural and man-made geographical wonders, from the Great Barrier Reef to Stonehenge to The Kremlin. What Is topics cover historical events and sites: Pearl Harbor, The Titanic, The Twin Towers, and many more.  Recent additions are graphic-format volumes about Cesar Chavez, Joan of Arc, Rosa Parks, and the Battle of Gettysburg.  

Satisfy your curiosity about historical figures and places with these fun, information-packed small bites.  All the volumes in these series make great read-alouds for adults to share with younger children (and the adult gets to learn some interesting facts along the way), and are about the right reading level for 4^th grade and up.

You’ll be surprised by what you thought you knew, but didn’t! 

Kyla Merwin, Communications Manager, recommends A Thousand Ships by Natalie Haynes. 

War: Stratagems, combat, mortal wounds, loss, despair, weapons of destruction, endless days of boredom punctuated with heart-rending violence.  

These are the accoutrements of the women in Natalie Haynes’ inspired re-telling of the Trojan War. Fasten your seatbelts!

You’ll meet Penelope, wife of Odysseus; Helen, bearing the face that launched a thousand ships; the Amazon princess Penthesilea; Hecabe (Hecuba), mother to Hector and Paris; Iphigenia, sacrificed by Agamemnon (uh…her father). You’ll see these heroic women, and many more, as you’ve never seen them before—with tremendous depth and emotional lives as finely wrought as the hilt of a sword.  

You’ll also meet The Furies, three goddesses of vengeance and retribution; the nymph-goddess Thetis, mother of Achilles; and the bickering goddesses Aphrodite, Hera, and Athena, who fought over an apple engraved with the words, “to the fairest,” and started this whole fiasco. 

A Thousand Ships takes a deep dive into the trenches of conflict—between nations, rivals, individuals, and one’s own tumultuous desires. 

A Thousand Ships takes a deep dive into the trenches of conflict—between nations, rivals, individuals, and one’s own tumultuous desires. 

The author narrates the audiobook version of this title, and she is so so good – so good – that I chased her all the way into the podcast, “Natalie Haynes Stands up for the Classics.” Who knew she was a stand-up comedienne as well as a high-minded classicist and a dazzling storyteller? So, she’s brilliant, obviously, and dang bloody funny.  

But back to the book.  

Natalie’s rendition of the Trojan War begins as one woman wakes to an empty house in a city on fire. Troy has been betrayed and the city is being sacked by Greeks. Yes, those same Greeks who bore the gift of a Trojan horse (the fabled wooden statue hiding a pack of Greek warriors led by Achilles and Odysseus). The rest is history.  

But we’re not going forward; we’re going back, to watch the ten-year war unfold through the eyes of the women who forged their own mettle and waged fierce battles with all they had to give. 

Natalie Haynes weaves vivid tales of vastly different women into one beautiful, heart-breaking tapestry that redefines what it means to be thrust into the heart of war.  

Available in print, ebook, and eaudiobook.  

by Nicole Lichtenberg, Director of Operations

Hello again, spooky pals! This is the second half of my series on Weird Fiction—a subgenre that can include elements of magical realism, fantasy, horror, science fiction, speculative fiction, even western! A feature of most Weird Fiction is that there is some sort of transgression of a norm or expectation—this could be a social norm or a manipulation concerning the laws of physics. It is supposed to be weird, and weird plays by its own rules.  

The works I’m recommending in Part 2 do contain more mature content. Just like in real life, characters may take part in sexual relationships, use swear words, or engage in/experience physical violence. As I mentioned previously, the diversity of character identities and their unconventional pasts aren’t necessarily what makes them Weird Fiction.  It’s the stories’ reflection of the world around us, especially those parts that are shifted and swapped out, that makes them such powerful stories in the Weird Fiction world and beyond.   

The City We Became by N.K. Jemisin. I don’t know how to describe this book, but it’s one of my top ten favorites. Is the central conflict person v. person? Person v. nature? Person v. paranormal? Nature v. nature? All? Neither? I recommend the audiobook. Audience: High School and up. Find it here. 

The Shape of Water. Amidst the fear and uncertainty of the Cold War, a nice young woman working in a secret laboratory meets a nice young man. Like the proverbial algae, love blooms. I should note the nice young man has webbed feet. And hands. And gills. Audience: Rated R. Find it here. 

Everything, Everywhere, All at Once. This is a heck of a movie. A middle-aged woman, already a wife, mother, and business owner, is forced into being a different kind of superhero as she surfs the multiverse. Chaos abounds. Calamity aside, I found this movie surprisingly poignant. Audience: Rated R. Find it here. 

Lovecraft Country. This is the 1950s as you’ve (hopefully) never seen them. Against a familiar backdrop, everything that isn’t nailed down gets warped, warped, warped. Brilliantly. Audience: I don’t know. I watched it. It’s a lot. Watch if you dare. Find it here. 

The Hot Zone: A Terrifying True Story by Richard Preston.  Sometimes the weirdest reality is the one we’re all trapped in. Audience: Middle school and up, if that middle schooler has a strong stomach. I sure didn’t. Find it here. 

Click here to read Weird Fiction, Part 1