Elliott Bay Gift Certificates
Our unique handwritten
Gift Certificates are available in-store or charge-by-phone only! Call 1-800-962-5311
to order yours today!
The perfect gift—in any amount—with that personal touch of classic old world charm.
It's been twenty years since Karen Tei Yamashita came to Elliott Bay with her dazzling, genre-defying debut novel, Through the Arc of the Rain Forest. It's been nine years—following subsequent appearances for Brazil-Maru, Tropic of Orange, and 2001's Circle K Cycles -since she has been here, or had a new work released. The wait for those of us who have awaited has been met with the highly original, remarkable new novel that is her I Hotel (Coffee House Press, artwork by Leland Wong and Sina Grace). Set primarily in the heart of San Francisco from 1968 - 1977, it captures a period of generational, cultural, and political transformation as very few other novels do as artfully. "I Hotel is an explosive site, a profound metaphor and jazzy, epic novel rolled into one. Karen Tei Yamashita chronicles the colliding arts and social movements in the Bay Area of the wayward '70s with fierce intelligence, humor and empathy." - Jessica Hagedorn. "I Hotel is an amazing literary accomplishment ... I believe it stands on the same plane of accomplishment as Roberto Bolaño's Savage Detectives and Edward P. Jones's The Known World." - Paul Yamazaki, City Lights Booksellers. A special part of this evening will be the presence of Seattle poet/artist Alan Chong Lau, who was part of the times and place portrayed in I Hotel. He will read selections of Asian American poets who lived and worked in the Bay Area back in the day.
