Crying in H Mart is an exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance. Michelle Zauner, known as the indie rock sensation Japanese Breakfast, proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist. With humor and heart, she tells of growing up as one of the few Asian American kids at her school in Eugene, Oregon; of struggling with her mother’s particular, high expectations of her; and of a painful adolescence.

Zauner shares 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, and 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 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, Zauner’s voice is as radiantly alive on the page as it is onstage.

A Place Like Mississippi takes readers on a fascinating journey through the evocative landscapes that have inspired generations of writers. W. Ralph Eubanks, an award-winning author and native of Mississippi, offers a compelling literary tour of the state.

From the muddy Delta to the rolling Hill Country, down to the Gulf Coast, Mississippi has been both a backdrop and a central character in some of the most compelling prose and poetry of modern literature. This journey touches on the settings that informed hundreds of iconic works.

Immerse yourself in these spaces and discover that Mississippi is not just a state, but a state of mind. As Faulkner is said to have observed, "To understand the world, you must first understand a place like Mississippi."