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Wilmette Reads-Ghost Music Book Discussion

Ghost Music by An Yu

Join us to discuss one of our Wilmette Reads titles, Ghost Music.

Please join us for a special book discussion led by creative writing professor and author, Nami Mun. 

For three years, Song Yan has filled the emptiness of her Beijing apartment with the tentative notes of her young piano students. With her marriage, she gave up on her own career as a concert pianist, but her husband Bowen has long rebuffed her desire to have a child.

Instead, she must accommodate her mother-in-law, newly arrived from the province of Yunnan and bringing with her long-buried family secrets. Soon strange parcels start to show up on the doorstep and Song Yan's dreams become troubling and claustrophobic. Striking out alone through the winter city, she finds herself pulled into the ancient hutongs to confront the source of her unease.

In a silent room within a timeless house, can she find the notes she needs to make sense of all the pain and beauty in her life? (From the publisher)

Nami Mun is an Assistant Professor of Creative Writing at Loyola University. She is also the author of the bestselling novel Miles from Nowhere, which received a Whiting Award, a Pushcart Prize, and the Chicago Public Library’s 21st Century Award. Nami Mun's work has been published by The New York Times, Granta, The Yale Review, Tin House, The Iowa Review, and the anthology Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation, and others. She has received numerous fellowships and honors, including James Baldwin/Hearst Foundation Fellowship from MacDowell, Yaddo scholarship, Northwestern University’s Simon Blattner Fellowship, and a Tin House scholarship. 

Copies of the book can be found here. Ebook and eaudiobook copies are available through Digital Library of Illinois or the Libby App and always available through Hoopla.

For those who would like to purchase a copy of Ghost Music, please support our local independent bookstore, The Book Stall.

This program is part of our 2025 Wilmette Reads community reading series. Learn more about how you can take part, including sign-up information, this year’s swag, and a full list of our associated programs.

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