Wild about WILD by Cheryl Strayed

Our April Book of the Month, guaranteed to please, is Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail by Cheryl Strayed.

Wild is, at its base, a memoir of a struggling young woman and her challenging solo hike along the Pacific Crest Trail (1,100 miles of it!). But it's so much more--full of heart, humor, hope, and humanity.

You will probably be hearing about this book everywhere. Believe thehype. (e.g. Sunday New York Times Book Review, SF Chronicle, GoodReads). I, for one, am willing to put my reputation of 18.5 years as a bookseller on the line for this one. You will love it.

Further proof? My wife and I almost never read the same book (it seems inefficient to us--is that weird?). In rare instances, we will more or less force the other to read something--she had me read Behind the Beautiful Forevers (which is excellent), and she read (and loved)

Wild. So it's not a guy book or a women's book--it's just a great book.

Buy if from your favorite local independent bookseller! If that's Green Apple, here's a link to the book and to the eBook. Those who act quickly might get a signed copy, as the author was gracious enough to stop by the store today.

on choosing a Staff Favorite

It can be hard, after 18.5 years of working in a bookstore, to come up with a new Staff Favorite. We read so many good books, and so many good books don't need our help. The perfect fit for the Staff Faves display is an excellent book that most customers have yet to read, so one can revel in the joys of spreading the good word about a great book.

My best Staff Favorite ever was A Fan's Notes by Frederick Exley, because:

1. Many people had never heard of it;
2. My shelf-talker was passionate and convincing (something about how cheated
   I felt that I had lived 26 years on this earth before someone told me about this great novel);
3. it's awesome; and
4. booze played a prominent role in the book, and San Franciscans love their booze (and boozy books).

My latest Staff Favorite was a bit of let-down, sales-wise. It was The Corrections, truly one of the best novels I've ever read. But almost everyone who might read it already has, so I was preaching to the proverbial choir.

My newest addition to the Staff Faves display is Fahrenheit 451. This pick could go either way: everyone has heard of it, but I'm hoping that many readers have just never gotten around to it, as I hadn't until a long plane trip to Nicaragua last month.

The thing about a book like this is that you think you "get it," even if you haven't read it. It's become so ingrained in our consciousness, like Pride and Prejudice or Moby Dick, that anyone who reads books pretty much "gets it."

But you can't, you don't, until you really do read it. Or at least that's what happened to me. The reason Fahrenheit 451 has held up for long is not just the easily imagined dystopian world in which books are burned, but in the powerful narrative, the eerie unexplained parts, Bradbury's prescience about wall-mounted TVs, the humor and lust and loss.

You just have to read it.

Back to School (yes, already)

Sunshine on Day One at Sunset Elementary!

Public schools have started up in San Francisco already.

My twins are on Day Two of kindergarten, and all is well so far. They were pretty beat after day one yesterday, and we spent a lot of time reading picture books at day's end. Even though we've largely moved on to longer chapter books (Matilda by Roald Dahl was a big hit this summer), they seemed to want to take it easy with some picture books. I think they somehow yearned to reconnect with their old picture books (and cuddly home rituals).

If you feel like treating your back-to-schooler with a new book, we have a nice display in the kids section right now. Good luck, kids and parents, in the new school year.

Two new kids books we love

As the parent of boy-girl twins who just turned five, and as a reader, and as the owner of a bookstore, I can tell you that there are two kinds of books for kids that are sadly uncommon:

1) The innovative. Well, there are innovative books, like Gallop! But an innovative book that 5 year-olds love, that's rare. To that end, we are pleased to be selling copy after copy of Press Here by Herve Tullet (Chronicle Books, $14.99). It's a big hit at our preschool: an interactive book of a magical sort. You just have to come in to see it.

2) The truly funny. And I mean funny for the kids and for the grown-up reading it. We just received our first batch of Betty Bunny Loves Chocolate Cake by Michael Kaplan and Stephane Jorisch (Dial Books, $16.99). When Betty Bunny discovers chocolate cake for the first time, she decides she loves it so much, she's going to marry it. Instead, she makes do with carrying it to school in her pocket. We love Betty Bunny.

Book of the Month: The Sisters Brothers

Each month in our newsletter, Green Apple presents the Book of the Month, a brand-new book about which we are evangelical. Some months, it's one Green Appler who loves the book and convinces everyone else that his/her choice is most worthy. Sometimes, two Green Applers are over the moon about the same book. This May, three Green Applers (including two of the three co-owners) are in love with The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt.

Kevin H and Ashely are responsible for our official "shelf-talker" below, but allow me to add that I, too, found this book thoroughly enjoyable, devouring it in one (albeit kid-free and slightly hungover) afternoon.

Reviewers speak of the humor contained in this western. Allow us to elaborate.

Two brothers with the last name of Sisters are assassins and rogues -- the mere mention of their names strikes fear in those lucky enough not to have crossed them, but for those that have, it's curtains. The older brother is a trigger-happy lead man with bad manners and a weakness for brandy who is also superstitious to a fault (he won't cross a hexed threshold to protect his own blood.) The younger brother prefers mint tooth powder to fennel, goes on a diet to (hopefully) win the affections of a lady, and is willing to risk a curse on his soul to protect a horse that he isn't really fond of. They bicker, argue, steal, fight, and kill their way to San Francisco (a chapter with the best description of the City we've ever read: both historical and ironically contemporary).

This western will leave you busting a gut, and trust us when we tell you that the spoon...well, it's not just for breakfast anymore.

Don't believe us? Read the heaps of praise here (e.g. “DeWitt has produced a genre-bending frontier saga that is exciting, funny, and, perhaps unexpectedly, moving.” -Publishers Weekly (starred review)).

You can buy it in the store, of course, or online here. Or read the Google eBook here ($11.99--the same price as Amazon). However you want to read it, stop depriving yourself of a good time (as the end is near?) and launch right into The Sisters Brothers.

PS Book cover of the year?

An amusement

Found on the Internet today, thanks to our pals at Shelf Awareness, an industry newsletter. We try not to just re-post cool things we find on the Internet, but I think the coolness factor here is high enough. Like Green Apple selling Google eBooks: a literary marriage of old and new.

Eight more parking spaces!

Thanks to the SF Bike Coalition's leadership, the city and county of San Francisco, and taxpayers, there are now at least 8 more parking spots in front of Green Apple Books! No more excuses about not finding parking on Clement Street.

Sure, you need a bicycle. No bike? Muni lines 1, 2, and 38 all stop within a block of us.

Here's the process (well, the process started months ago; here's the installation).

Steps 1 and 2: remove car and meter, paint

Steps 3 & 4: install and chat

Steps 5 & 6: park and lock

A reminder that members of the SF Bike Coalition get 10% off at Green Apple, day in and day out. Ride carefully!

and NBC11 tonight

KNTV stopped by Green Apple this morning to discuss the implications of the recent and coming closures of Borders and Barnes and Noble in San Francisco and beyond.

Watch at 6pm tonight to see what kind of mumbling know-it-all helps run Green Apple.

a visit with Jonathan Evison

(photo poached from the
very classy Tattered Cover blog)

We were lucky enough to sit down last week with Jonathan Evison, author of our February 2011 Book of the Month West of Here. Here's a short summary of our conversation.

Green Apple (GA): What are you reading right now?
Jonathan Evison (JE): I'm just finishing Let the Great World Spin. I also just read and loved The Sisters Brothers by Patrick Dewitt (due out in May from Ecco Press). It reminded me of Charles Portis. Also loved Zazen by Vanessa Vesilka, another Portland, OR, writer I admire.

GA: What are you working on now?
JE: Well, my next novel to be published is called The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving--it's a coming-of-middle-age-in-crisis story. But I'm working on the next one now, though this book tour has thrown me off my writing habits. I usually awaken at 5am to write for a few hours before anyone else is up, even though I'm nocturnal. With that routine gone during the tour, I have only beer to ground me.

GA: Really, you can usually drink a bunch of beer at night and still write in the morning?
JE: Yeah. I'm kind of like a knuckle-baller. The knuckle-ball pitcher uses the awkward release of a weak arm to throw the hitter's timing off. That's why they pitch tired. And I'm just really focused after partying.

GA: Thanks for coming by; I wish I took better notes. Our blog readers aren't going to realize how fun and smart you are. Want a beer for your drive to Danville?
JE: No, thanks. It's only 11am. And I have two cans of Guiness in the car. How long a drive is it?

If you need a reminder of why we loved West of Here, it's here.

a new book we like: The Lover's Dictionary

The Lover's Dictionary by David Levithan is a short, sweet, and creatively narrated novel of love and its aftermath.

If there's one subject for which our vocabularies so often feel insufficient, it is also perhaps the most popular subject for artistic expression. The nameless narrator of this book has constructed the story of his relationship as a dictionary. Through these short entries, he provides an intimate window into the greatest events and the most trifling details of being within a couple.

The Lover's Dictionary is funny and fun and heartbreaking.

Green Apple got to ask author David Levithan a few questions. Check out his answers below. Oh, and we have a handful of signed copies for the first customers who hightail it in here!

Best of 2010 continued

My three favorite books of the year were The Twin by Gerbrand Bakker; The Hour, a Cocktail Manifesto by Bernard DeVoto; and December's Book of the Month, The Emperor of all Maladies by Siddhartha Mukherjee.

The first is a Dutch novel of loneliness; the second is a witty and opinionated rant about booze; and the last is a "biography" of cancer. Click on any title for my original reviews. (Or to buy the Google ebook edition of the last, click here; it's only $12.99!).

Looking forward to another year of reading, twins, and (moderate) drinking. . . .

The Emperor of All Maladies

The Emperor of all Maladies:

A Biography of Cancer

Convincing you to buy a book about the history of cancer and the search for its prevention and cure is either going to be easy or very hard.

For those already interested, all I will add is that The Emperor of All Maladies is expertly researched, clearly narrated, and hopeful, if realistic. It's everything you hope for.

For those not interested at first glance, I just have to say that this is one of the most compelling non-fiction books I’ve read in years. A page-turner chock full of scientists, discovery, failure, “victims,” genomics, politics, moral quandaries and a persistently evasive disease that will, alas, afflict one in three American women and one in two American men in their lifetimes. Knowledge is power, right? Get your knowledge here.

This book is fantastic (and totally readable for the curious layperson without being dumbed down). My highest personal recommendation.

Memory lane: our catalogs

Many years ago, Green Apple had a mailing list.  Not an email list (which you should be on if you're reading this; join here).  And we produced a (quarterly?) catalog of new books.  I stumbled on a batch of them recently.  They're from the late 1980s and early 1990s, judging from the books featured therein.

Within I found some timelessness, both in the irreverent attitude of the production (see cover #1 below) and in the content: there's Philip Roth with a new book, and Martin Amis, and Alice Munro and a Jack London biography.

Key differences?  Sales tax (according to the order form on the back) was 6.5%. Hardcovers averaged $18.95.  How quaint, huh?

Here are scanned covers of four newsletters from years passed.  I kind of think that last one would make a nice Green Apple t-shirt, huh?

Bikes and Books

Today's theme: Green Apple likes bikes.

• We got the city to install a bike rack in front of our annex (520 Clement). Alas, due to the bus zone in front of the main store, that's it for us. But Schubert's Bakery, right across the street, has a rack, too.

• Green Apple is participating in the city's "I Bike SF" campaign. Show us your bike helmet at checkout and we'll give you 10% off.

• Many Green Apple employees and owners bike to work most or much or all of the time.

• We're producing a Litquake event at Public Bikes around a fascinating book about a cyclist/adventurer: The Lost Cyclist: The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer and his Mysterious Disappearance by David Herlihy. Details here.

Bike on over. Oh, and we have well curated selection of books on bikes, of course.

Poem of the Week by Gustaf Sobin

Happy Monday. The poem of the week returns with one from Gustaf Sobin's Collected Poems (Talisman House, 2010).

MADRIGAL


with you
what I know of

the world
opens, has

that of
swelling, wave as

it tatters, a
ruled line, against

reefs, a
breadth that

still
spreading, breaks

in-
to dull tokens, spent

petals, what the
poem

would
close on, hold

in its
swift tissues, those

blown
ex-

panses,
shadows as

if
pouring, light

from your
fingers, your

blue, un-
loosened sash.

Borders leaves, Freedom arrives

OK, so the two are not related, but here's the book news of the day.

Borders is closing stores, including one of their 4 San Francisco locations (near the ballpark). We're thrilled to announce that we're NOT closing (except overnight, as we always have, and on Thanksgiving and Christmas).

Borders is also putting in some sort of make-your-own-teddy-bear workshops. Now we at Green Apple are not against selling non-book items to stay profitable (see here), and we've always promised to stay nimble and adapt to the ever-changing marketplace. But, hmm.

In other news, the most buzzed-about novel in a long time is out today: Freedom by Jonathan Franzen. The front cover of Time magazine, Obama's acquisition of the book pre-publication, multiple gushing reviews in the NY Times and elsewhere.

For a simultaneously amusing and enlightening review, see this video from the Washington Post.

We're discounting Freedom 20% (for now). So come support a store that is NOT bailing on San Francisco though times are tough. Save $5, get it today, and have some dim sum. It's even sunny right now. . . .(10:37 am 8/31/10--no guarantees).

Summer reading: The Twin

I don't know how I ended up taking this Dutch first novel to the East Coast for my summer vacation. And it was sort of an anomalous experience to immerse myself in life on a cold Dutch farm while lolling on a Delaware beach in 90-degree heat. Circumstances aside, this book consumed me in the best possible way.

The Twin won this year's Impac Dublin Literary Award, and, I say humbly, their citation best explains why this book is so good. Here are two excerpts, or read the whole citation here.

Though rich in detail, it’s a sparely written story, with the narrator’s odd small cruelties, laconic humour and surprising tendernesses emerging through a steady, well-paced, unaffected style. . . .

The book convinces from first page to last. With quiet mastery the story draws in the reader. The writing is wonderful: restrained and clear, and studded with detail of farm rhythms in the cold, damp Dutch countryside. The author excels at dialogue, and [the narrator] Helmer’s inner story-telling voice also comes over perfectly as he begins to change everything around him. There are intriguing ambiguities, but no false notes. Nothing and no one is predictable, and yet we believe in them all: the regular tanker driver, the next door neighbour with her two bouncing children, and Jaap, the old farm labourer from the twins’ childhood who comes back to the farm in time for the last great upheaval, as Helmer finally takes charge of what is left of his own life.

So sunny weather in San Francisco be damned. Buy and read this precise novel now or when the fog returns. . . and thank me later.

Sharp new Green Apple shirts

We just got in some new Green Apple shirts. This design has graced our canvas bags for 20+ years, but we've never done a shirt. It took a request from a regular customer to get them made, and we only printed a few to test the waters. But staff is snatching them up quickly, so I thought I should spread the word before the test run sells out. We will, of course, get more in a few months.

Snazzy American Apparel "ringer" T. Behold:

Poem of the Week by Norma Cole

Happy Monday. Today's poem is by Norma Cole, from her book Natural Light (Libellum, 2009). Enjoy.

The Vision

fixed syntax
in our lifetime

as if they never heard of
such a thing

the figure in the strait
stirring occasionally

all the fragments
the rights of can-openers

any mystery

Poem of the Week by Duncan McNaughton

Happy Monday. This week's poem is from A Passage of Saint Devil by Duncan McNaughton (Talonbooks, 1976). There's no link because it doesn't show up on our site. But believe me, we have it, and it's beautiful. Stop by or call if you want to buy one.

Ode

Open if honor for love and art
vanishes in the precision

we dishonor, others imagine
observing constance when it is instance

we dread, and resemblant
let it wither as stone wore

out for the old ones after wood--
it was never meant to

stay in place forever, much less to offer
chance divers exercises in time

or collapse so nearly
merely extension. But the knots

you cord events
disturb the looming

areal circumvention, our
breath. Esotericism is never

more than the near perfect practice
of the real, string,

carpets, eventually
commerce, not trade but

transaction of persons the secret
invitation found as result of

donative impression,
gravitational prehension.