Hello and welcome to Happier, a podcast about how to be happier.

This week is our discussion for the Happier Podcast Book Club, so we'll be talking to

Michelle Zowner about her thought-provoking, beautiful memoir, Crying in H. Mart.

I'm Gretchen Rubin, a writer whose studies happiness, good habits in human nature.

I am in my home office, which is a little bit noisy today here in New York City and joining

me today from Puerto Rico is my sister-in-law's just craft.

That's me Elizabeth Kraft, a TV writer and producer, usually living in LA, but right now in Puerto

Rico, shooting fantasy island.

And I am very excited to talk about this excellent book.

Yes.

Last year we launched our Happier Podcast Book Club and today's conversation is about

the brilliant memoir Crying in H. Mart by Michelle Zowner.

Michelle Zowner is known as a singer and guitarist who creates a dreamy indie pop under the

name Japanese breakfast with releases like Psycho Pomp, Soft Sounds from another planet,

and just this year Jubilee.

And now she's written a best-selling memoir that has generated a tremendous amount of

buzz ever since she published an excerpt in The New Yorker.

The official description is, in this exquisite story of family, food, grief, and endurance,

Michelle Zowner proves herself far more than a dazzling singer, songwriter, and guitarist.

With humor in heart, she tells of growing up one of the few Asian American kids at her

school in Eugene, Oregon, of struggling with her mother's particular high expectations

of her of a painful adolescence of treasured months spent in her grandmother's tiny apartment

...