December Book Club & Holiday Cookie Swap: Taipei Story by R.F. Kuang

We’re co-hosting our December book club and Holiday Cookie swap with our dear friends at Early Yves Café! Y’all have been asking us for a Taipei Story book club, and this is our early holiday gift to you! Come share your thoughts on R.F. Kuang’s latest novel while enjoying some delicious holiday cookies made by our community <3.

Bring 20-25 of your favorite holiday cookies to exchange and take home a box of your favorites! Participation in the holiday cookie swap portion isn't required to attend book club. This event will be hosted at Early Yves Café in Bed-Stuy (210 Patchen Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11233). Tickets include a specially crafted cafe beverage from our incredible host and packing supplies to take your holiday cookie box home! Doors open at 6:00pm, Book Club discussion begins at ~6:30pm.

About Taipei Story by R.F. Kuang

From R.F. Kuang, the acclaimed # 1 New York Times bestselling author of Katabasis and Yellowface, comes a wryly humorous and profoundly moving coming-of-age novel that grapples with grief, language, and culture shock-all set against the backdrop of an unforgettable summer in Taipei.

College freshman Lily Chen is off to spend the summer in Taipei at an intensive language program like so many Chinese American students before her, hoping to connect with the culture she inherited but never fully understood. But a promising start quickly unravels. Her classes are grueling, her roommate is driving her insane, and a reckless trip to the hot springs with a guy she barely knows soon has her classmates viciously gossiping. She feels adrift, a foreigner in a country she thought would feel like home.

Then shocking news arrives: Lily's grandfather has passed away. The loss forces her to grapple with now-unanswerable questions about her family history. As Lily grieves, she's drawn into a journey of self-discovery-piecing together memories, stories, and silences over a series of hilarious and devastating attempts at connection.

Taipei Story asks: What if the diaspora fantasy of homecoming never comes true? What if learning a language can't bring you any closer to the people you're trying to reach? What if you search for your family's history, but your family doesn't want to share? What if you wait too long to ask the right questions? As Lily struggles for answers, her summer becomes a poignant search for understanding-of herself, her family, and the meaning of home.

About the Author

Rebecca F. Kuang is the # 1 New York Times and # 1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the Poppy War trilogy, Babel: An Arcane History, Yellowface, Katabasis, and Taipei Story. Her work has won the Nebula, Locus, Crawford, and British Book Awards. She is the Millard Distinguished Writer in Residence at the College of the Holy Cross.

Book Club Rules

• You commit to treating everyone with respect and care

• Stay home if you feel sick!

• You do NOT need to have read or finished the book, but you do have to be ready for spoilers! We'll be discussing the themes of the book and you can still participate :)

If you would like to attend but the ticket cost is prohibitive, please reach out to contact@yellowperilbooks.com and we will try to find a solution! We never want lack of funds to be a barrier to entry.

Refunds and Exchanges

Ticket purchases cannot be refunded. Because we don't have our own storefront, we host our events in partnership with other local small businesses, meaning we share all operational costs as well as revenue with them based on anticipated attendance. The only way for our partner businesses to properly prepare supplies, space, and food/drinks for these events is to have a clear idea of how many attendees to expect, meaning that any last-minute changes make it that much harder to host.

Exchanges for future events are allowed if you reach out a minimum of 10 days before the start of the original event you signed up for. Our events are usually sold out and we want to make sure that we'd have enough time to fill any open spots with people who are hoping to join. Please reach out to contact@yellowperilbooks.com if you have any issues with your ticket.