Observed

New signage around Green Apple Books this holiday season 2010. Happy horror holiday noose.

K to the FOG in the AM

I've got to keep this entry brief, because I'm up to my ears in holiday gift suggestions for the book lovers in all of our lives...

Tune in to KFOG tomorrow morning from 8:00am - 9:00am, when I will be sharing all the tomes I've deemed gift-worthy, during an extended holiday Morning Show appearance. No hints now, but know that my list will certainly knock your stockings off; so turn that dial to 104.5fm in The City or 97.7fm in the South Bay and crank-up the volume!

You can also stream the Morning Show live at http://www.kfog.com/ - just click the banner link that says, 'Listen Live', it's that easy.

And don't forget that Amazon = lump of coal.

Google eBooks are here!

Green Apple has taken another small step into the 21st century. Like some other independent bookstores, we've teamed up with Google to provide you with ebooks.

Nifty things about Google ebooks:

• they are cloud-based, so you can read your ebooks on any device, from your desktop or laptop to your IPhone or IPad. They even synch automatically as you read.
  
• they are "device-agnostic," meaning you can read them on any device (from the above screens to Sony's e-reader) EXCEPT the Kindle, but don't get us started there.
• while prices vary by publisher, Green Apple can match the prices of other sellers for most books from most publishers (Random House is the current big exception, alas).

So now you can read "e" editions of books and still support Green Apple. More info awaits you here.

We've just launched, and will soon be curating a fine selection of recommendations to get you started (this was my first ebook download). Meanwhile, please help us spread the word!

Cs

Like our September Book of the Month, December is filled with 'Cs.' Most prominently in my world is the vitamin C that I've been funneling down my throat for the last week in an attempt to fight off a vicious cold. 'The big C,' aka cancer, is the topic for our December Book of the Month, and of course there is the obvious Christmas, Chanukah, capitalism and all other such Cs that are American requisites we're consistently obliged and acknowledge this time of year. Cancer and crazy holiday-time obligations aside though, the most important C-word that comes to mind here at Green Apple is COMMUNITY. Henceforth I'd like to direct your attention to this link to the NCIBA, The Northern California Independent Booksellers Association, and to to ask you please keep in mind that if you can't get your books from us there is a whole mess of independent bookstores in the immediate area that are totally excited and eager for your business, that there is little reason to run to any corporate bookselling conglomerate if we happen to fail you. This is an important time of the year for all booksellers, especially the little guys.

A thing of beauty is a joy... at least until the next thing of beauty comes along

In the course of the next few weeks, we'll be unveiling some of the best books we read this year, but in the meantime, look at these beauties from Visual Editions.

Tristram Shandy has always deserved a design innovative enough to match its plot--and now one of the funnest, funniest, and singularly modern novels (which just so happens to have been written 250 years ago) has found its ideal form.


And while Leonardo's definition of sculpture as "taking away superfluous materials" may not hold true in the following case, Jonathan Safran Foer's sculptural reworking of Bruno Schulz's Street of Crocodiles, certainly proves that the book as an object is far from dead.

Both J.S.F.'s Tree of Codes and Tristram Shandy are, of course, in stock now.