UCSB Reads 2026 Presents Author Michelle Zauner

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“Michelle Zauner has written a book you experience with all of your senses: sentences you can taste, paragraphs that sound like music. She seamlessly blends stories of food and memory, sumptuousness and grief, to weave a complex narrative of loyalty and loss.” – The New Yorker 

Bestselling author and Grammy-nominated musician Michelle Zauner (Japanese Breakfast) shares the moving story behind her memoir Crying in H Mart, a powerful meditation on family, food, identity and loss. Blending lyrical prose and emotional honesty, Zauner’s book explores her Korean-American heritage and her mother’s lasting influence through the tastes and textures of memory.

Now entering its milestone 20th year, UCSB Reads is UC Santa Barbara's award-winning common book program that fosters a shared sense of belonging by bringing the campus and Santa Barbara communities together each year to read a common book that explores compelling issues of our time. Each year, an advisory committee composed of UCSB faculty, staff, students, and community partners helps the Library select an intellectually stimulating, interdisciplinary book by a living author that appeals to a wide range of readers and can be incorporated into the UCSB curriculum.

The UCSB Reads 2026 book selection is Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner. Zauner's debut book spent 60 weeks on The New York Times hardcover non-fiction bestseller list and received a 2022 American Book Award and the 2021 Goodreads Choice Award for Memoir & Autobiography. It was also named a top book of the year by numerous publications, including TIME, The Atlantic, and Entertainment Weekly. 

Michelle Zauner is a young Korean-American musician, singer, songwriter, director, and author. She is the lead vocalist of acclaimed indie pop band Japanese Breakfast. The band’s third album, Jubilee (2021), charted on the Billboard 200, peaking at No. 56, and was nominated for two Grammy Awards – for Best New Artist and Best Alternative Music Album. TIME magazine named Zauner one of the 100 most influential people of 2022.