The Brentwood Library will host "Tapestry of Voices," a talk and reading by Gail Tsukiyama, on Saturday, Nov. 3 at 2 p.m. Tsukiyama will discuss and read from her CityRead book, "The Samurai's Garden." This event will be held at the Brentwood Community Center, across the patio from the library.

"The Samurai's Garden" is the story of a young man's year of discovery in Japan just before WWII. A Chinese college student, Stephen, visits his family's summer home in Japan to convalesce from tuberculosis. He meets the housekeeper and gardener of the home, Matsu. As the story unfolds, we meet Matsu's beautiful soulmate, Sachi, who suffers from leprosy. Stephen forms a relationship with a teenage girl Keikko, but Japan's invasion of China, and the subsequent death of Keiko's brother in the war, ends their relationship.

Gail Tsukiyama was born in San Francisco to a Chinese mother and a Japanese father. She attended San Francisco State University, where she received her bachelor's and master's degrees in English with an emphasis in creative writing. A resident of the East Bay, she has taught creative writing at San Francisco State University, the University of California, Berkeley, and was a Distinguished Guest Writer at the Virginia G. Piper Center for Creative Writing at Arizona State University. She is currently Book Review Editor for the online magazine The WaterBridge Review.

In September of 2001, Tsukiyama was one of fifty authors chosen by the Library of Congress to participate in the first National Book Festival in Washington, D.C. She has been a guest speaker at the Hong Kong International Literary Festival, the Vancouver Writer's Festival and the Sydney Writer's Festival. She has been the recipient of the Academy of American Poets Award, the Pacific Rim Leadership Award from the University of San Francisco Center for the Pacific Rim, and the PEN/Oakland Josephine Miles Award.

Tsukiyama's novels include "Women of the Silk," "The Samurai's Garden," "Night of Many Dreams," "The Language of Threads" and "Dreaming Water." Her new novel, "The Street of a Thousand Blossoms," will be published this fall.

The Brentwood Library is located at 751 Third St. next to Liberty High School and is open Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; and closed on Sunday. For more information, phone the library at 634-4101. The Friends of the Brentwood Library and the Brentwood Arts Commission sponsor the CityRead.