The Elliott Bay Book Company

More than a decade after his acclaimed, masterful translation of The Tale of Genji, Royall Tyler has rendered into beautiful, precise English another great Japanese classic. This twelfth-century epic tells stories of love and war, beauty and horror, of the most exalted and the most base longings and aspirations.
Translated in both prose and poetry, and accompanied by maps and beautiful illustrations, this is one of the finest literary gifts of the season and beyond—a masterpiece of high order. —Rick

Timothy Egan develops a portrait of Edward Curtis, every bit as finely detailed and artfully composed as the photographs for which Curtis is revered. Informed by Egan's painstaking research and brought to life by his panoramic prose, Curtis stands in stark profile against the backdrop of a changing world. Opening in Seattle in 1896, we follow Curtis as he treks across the country in pursuit of his grand obsession: to document the remaining tribes of native peoples before they vanish. Truly, a great American story! —John

Amy Leach entices you with such playful, teasing, twirling prose, that one minute you're sitting comfortably in your favorite local café, and the next minute you're giddily grasping the author's hand as she hunts for the handsome, yet socially reserved beaver. Join a moth as it ambles across a convenience store parking lot, ponder the moon, anguish over a torn comforter, and yearn for oracles of old. By the time you're finished, your knees will be dirty, your cheeks will be rosy, and you might even be slightly out of breath. What a delight to read! A treasure for all. —Jillian

Høeg's book is a wonder. Few books have enchanted me like this one. It is the story of an eccentric family, three children and their parents, who all live on the fictional island of Fino in Denmark. As told by fourteen-year-old Peter, the crux of the story hangs on the disappearance of the children's parents. What has happened to them? The story is playful, humorous, and mysterious in ways that are completely unique. This incomparable novel made me giddy with joy and awe for reasons that I can't exactly put my finger on. —Greg

This full-throttled sequel to The Given Day barrels through the corrupt years of prohibition. Joe Coughlin, the son of Boston PD brass, is a low level thug on the fringes of organized crime until he lands himself in Charlestown Penitentiary. Survival in the pen necessitates a relationship with a powerful gangster, and so begins an ascent, which will eventually see him become a bootlegging kingpin in a sultry Tampa. This violent tropical milieu hastens his downward spiral into the depraved world of crime governed by the rules of the night. —Jamie

Maricel E. Presilla spent thirty years exploring the Spanish and Portuguese speaking countries of South and Central America, and this gorgeous cookbook brings together over five hundred recipes, sprinkled throughout with beautiful drawings and sumptuous color photographs. The author holds a doctorate in medieval Spanish history and is also the chef and coowner of two pan-Latin restaurants. She brings her extensive knowledge and passionate love of Latin cuisine to a cookbook to be treasured. From the mountains of Chile to the warmth of the Caribbean, from empanadas to dulce de leche, these recipes are guaranteed to spice up your life. —Laurie

Love—I mean cosmically random, chance encounter love—is under siege, replaced by our society's preference for a tedious, safety-first experience. French philosopher Alain Badiou takes issue with the way we've implemented certain strategies for finding love without risk—and ultimately without reward.
In Praise of Love is at once a philosophical and political study of love, a refreshingly contemporary, poetic exaltation of that timeless subject. Drawing on historical representations, new cultural trends, and personal experience, Badiou sees love as an opportunity to constantly re-invent truth in our world by experiencing difference itself—a chance to "handle difference and make it creative." —Alan

The American West has endured as a place of self-made myth—its characters as rugged as the harsh conditions that formed its topography. In Claire Vaye Watkins' debut collection of stories, she imagines a regional past and present bound by resolve in even the most commonplace strife. These are stories indeed borne out of life's curious battles: adolescent yearnings in a desert town, once-love complicated by parenthood, the author's own family legacy haunted by darker chapters of our country's narrative. Watkins illuminates these personal histories of place with a compassionate and intuitively sparse voice, giving a seemingly uninhabitable landscape its heartbeat. —Alan

How can such a slender book carry so much weight? Dr. Homayounpour's brevity is the result of sharp intelligence combined with clear-eyed compassion and the most courageous kind of humility. She analyzes the invisible barriers between East and West as she travels through them, she analyzes the patients seeking her help on the couch, and most of all she analyzes herself. She sets aside the safe and rehearsed tone of academic discourse, and instead she gives us access to her hesitations, fears, and uncertainties. And from this free and risky exploration come profound revelations. —Casey O.

There is a fine line between miracle and catastrophe in Barbara Kingsolver's new novel. On a small farm in the Appalachians where she and her husband work with their in-laws, Dellarobia discovers butterflies in Biblical proportions. The already palpable family tensions escalate as the phenomenon causes environmental concerns to clash with rural religious anxieties. Kingsolver's razorsharp attention to Dellarobia's shortcomings in matters of fidelity, belief, and money draws the reader into the duplicity of human faithfulness, and suggests that what is ugly on one side may be magnificent on the other. —Dave

This stirring account of the life of Alexandre Dumas Senior—father and inspiration to the beloved adventure author—almost defies credence. Born in the world's most brutal (and profitable) slave colony. Pawned into chattel slavery by his own father. Redeemed, brought to France, and made a Count by the selfsame rogue. Educated to refinement. Enlisted as a common soldier of the Ancien Régime. Advanced through the ranks of the Pour le Mérite to a nuanced and humane command of Napoleonic cavalry. All set against the passionate surge and tumult of the French Revolution. A true story that will have you humming La Marseillaise and cheering the progress of ideas. —Jesse

Ritchie, an aging rock star now producing reality TV, cowers in the shadow of an impending scandal while his scientist sister Bec puts her health on the line trying to cure malaria. And that's only the tip of the iceberg. The Heart Broke In is funny, kind, and populated with people who are stubborn in their flaws and natural in their brilliance. Meek's masterful narration poses big questions by exploring the ambivalent mess of real life, and the result is a unique, addictive novel that grapples head on with the inseparable hope and tragedy of the human family. —Casey O.

From Ka (on Indian myth) to K. (on Kafka) to Tiepolo Pink (on the painter) and now to this book, which starts with Charles Baudelaire, Italian author and book publisher (Adelphi) extraordinaire Roberto Calasso considers his series of books on seemingly disparate subjects to be really one variegated, eclectic, sweeping work, albeit with many aspects. La Folie is an elegant, readerly excursion, using Baudelaire and Baudelaire's time and place in nineteenth-century Paris to sumptuously explore the startling new work that artists and poets there were making; the beginning of everything that would, in time, be called "Modern." —Rick

This brilliantly realized novel imagines Willie Sutton, America's most prolific bank robber, during the days after his 1969 release from Attica prison. Willie travels through New York with a journalist and a photographer, returning to important places from his past. Now sixty-nine years old, his reminiscences reveal a man of intellect and wit, whose spectacular non-violent crime sprees and remarkable prison escapes were motivated by corrupt banks and economic depressions, but actually instigated and sustained by his lifelong love for a young socialite. Enjoy this rollicking gangster tale, poignant history lesson, and wonderful rendering of an enigmatic American legend. —Erica

This truly amazing story is ideal for those who prefer their adventure tales pulled from history. Whaling was once a vital industry, but it was also rife with peril, and in September of 1897, eight whaling vessels became trapped in the ice of Point Barrow, Alaska. With more than 250 lives at stake, President McKinley ordered a rescue, and the cutter ship Bear left Seattle. This rescue would be accomplished by intrepid individuals without helicopters, GPS, or cell phones. Recounted from the diaries, letters, and historic photographs of those involved, this is a story of the impossible made possible. —Holly

In this terrific introduction to the birding way of life, a Seattle area father and son team introduce all the basics of good birding, from proper etiquette (don't get too close, don't try to touch), to identification techniques (plumage, camouflage, beaks), and tips on how to build feeders and attract birds to your own backyard. Birding is inexpensive, it can be shared with people of all ages, and it can be done anywhere. Filled with practical advice and spectacular photographs of avian beauties, this gem of a book squawks to be shared with loved ones—young and old alike! —Holly

Any fan of baseball, pirates, or cowboys is sure to love this imaginative new picture book. What happens when the likes of Captain Hook, Blackbeard, and Long John Silver play baseball against Hopalong Cassidy, Wild Bill Hickok, and the Cisco Kid? Find out as this unusual showdown takes place in the ball yard. And don't miss tomorrow's game between the Vikings and the Tigers! David