The comfort found in bookstores, libraries inspired the ChimLanh book club in the Cedars

At Vietnamese coffee shop ChimLanh in the Cedars neighborhood, customers on Saturday morning made their way to the walk-up window to order pastries and coffee.

In the middle of the cozy outdoor patio with overhead string lights, book lovers gathered at a large picnic table for a meeting of a new book club. One person munched on a Pride-themed doughnut while others sipped milky-brown iced coffee from mason jars.

Book club leader Haewon Park invited each person to answer an icebreaker question from cue cards they made. Amber Alvarez went first, answering the question: “Where do you like to read?”

“I really like to read in my car at lunch. I have a setup where I have, like, a blanket and a pillow. Even now, I brought a cooler because it’s getting hot and I put blankets on my window,” she said.

Club members laughed as Alvarez described her makeshift setup.

Going around the table, each attendee introduced themselves and shared what books they brought, which included everything from a manga “Library Wars” to bell hooks’ “All About Love: New Visions.”

Saturday morning was the second gathering of the book club at ChimLanh. Even though it recently launched, it’s clear that the book club is quickly becoming a haven for bibliophiles.

“I think I want them to feel like how I first felt walking into Sandwich Hag, which is, like, this is a place where you can relax and feel welcome and you can just nerd out,” Park said. “You can be as passionate as you want about whatever you enjoy, and it’s like a safe space for that.”

The idea for the book club first came from chef Reyna Duong of ChimLanh and Dallas staple Sandwich Hag. She reached out to Park to see if they’d be willing to host the book club. Park has worked at bookshops such as Deep Vellum and previously worked as a literacy tutor.

“We both believe in community building and trying to make Dallas like home, because I grew up in Dallas, but I never really felt like it was home,” Park said.

For much of their life growing up in North Texas, Park felt like they were on the margins as a Korean American with immigrant parents who moved from Hawaii.

“I think the main thing I felt growing up here is that the only safe space was the public library and Half-Price Books,” they said. “I’ve always searched for spaces where I feel invited, and they’re always bookstores.”

They have started to see more bookish spaces created for people of color, like BlackLIT in Farmers Branch. However, Park said there’s still a need to bridge that gap in North Texas, as they’ve never seen an Asian book club.

“Even, like, five years ago pre-pandemic, I was like, ‘Where do you go if you don’t want to just be surrounded by what you imagine Texas to be, which is a lot of white-dominated spaces, which I’m used to.’ So I usually would just stay home,” they said.

That’s why Park is making such an effort to foster community around a picnic table at ChimLanh with people laughing and stacks of books scattered around.

They said there’s no specific format, so anyone can jump in. For the first meeting, Park read from Michelle Zauner’s “Crying in H Mart.” Today, everyone was invited to bring some of their own books.

Kiharrah Johnson teaches at a Montessori school and said it’s her second time at the book club. She said she loves coming to ChimLanh for a coffee and bite to eat, so it’s a “win-win.”

“I brought a children’s book. I brought a poetry book. I brought some books around Black liberation,” she said. “I really love children’s books. I’m a teacher. I love reading books – that’s my favorite time of the day.”

Stephanie Grace brought “Lone Women,” a historical novel about a Black homesteader woman in Montana. It was a deviation from Grace’s go-to genres, but she ended up loving the book.

“I really wasn’t expecting it to be so cool, but it talks a lot about the experience for women back then, like making it on their own and then looking at it through the lens of race and gender and sexuality,” Grace said.

For Park, the club is about freeing people from this idea of what it looks like to be a true reader.

“I’m just excited to introduce people to an array of different genres and just be excited about reading in a way that doesn’t feel like, ‘Oh, this is like a guilty pleasure.’ Like, ‘Oh, I shouldn’t be reading this. This is for younger people.’ I read picture books, like whatever sparks joy is OK. I want people to feel validated.”

In the future, Park aims to host the book club every week, hopes to do a book swap and continue doing more live readings.

Want to join the book club? Follow @bookclubwithhaewon on Instagram for the latest updates. ChimLanh, which is nestled inside Sandwich Hag, is open from Wednesday through Sunday from 9 a.m. - 3 p.m.

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