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25-26 Great Michigan Read: "Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chines Restaurant" In-Person

Join the tenth Great Michigan Read; featuring Michigan author Curtis Chin’s memoir, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant!

Individual copies and Book Club Kit available now!

Since 2007, The Great Michigan Read-- a statewide reading and conversation program --has been one of Michigan Humanities’ signature programs.. GLADL and other libraries across the state have copies of the selected book for individual readers; and a Book Club Kit (multiple copies of the book and supplementary materials) in our Library of Things.

"Nineteen eighties Detroit was a volatile place to live, but above the fray stood a safe haven: Chung’s Cantonese Cuisine, where anyone—from the city’s first Black mayor to the local drag queens, from a big-time Hollywood star to elderly Jewish couples—could sit down for a warm, home-cooked meal. Here was where, beneath a bright-red awning and surrounded by his multigenerational family, filmmaker & activist Curtis Chin grew up; where he learned to embrace his identity as a gay ABC, or American-born Chinese; where he navigated the divided city’s spiraling misfortunes; and where—between helpings of almond boneless chicken, sweet-and-sour pork, and some of his own, less-savory culinary concoctions—he realized just how much he had to offer to the world, to his beloved family, and to himself. Structured around the very menu that graced the tables of Chung’s, Everything I Learned, I Learned in a Chinese Restaurant is both a memoir and an invitation: to step inside one boy’s childhood oasis, scoot into a vinyl booth, grow up with him—and perhaps even share something off the secret menu."