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News and reviews from Clement Street
January 2012
In This Issue
Book of the Month
January Author Events
Five New Books We Like+
Lit in Translation
Clearance Sales
Quick Links
Greetings!
neon books
We're recovered from a wonderfully busy holiday season, and are now hard at work discovering great new books for the new year. 

Today, we present
  • our Book of the Month--with requisite humorous video;
  • three great events to get you out of the house and into a good book;  
  • five new books we like; and  
  • two new novels in translation worth your attention. 
Oh, and there are bargains to be had in the store right now, as we're making room for all the new arrivals.  Se below for deal details.

And remember--if you're into e-reading, you can buy eBooks from Green Apple for almost any device (except e-ink Kindles), usually at prices that match our online competitors.  Everything you need, including title suggestions to get you started, is HERE.

E-books or print books, it doesn't matter to us how you read.  We're here to share our mutual passion for books.
January's Book of the Month
The Orphan Master's Son by Adam Johnson (Random House)

orphan master's son

Citizens of North Korea not only don't enjoy freedom of the press and freedom of assembly, they truly don't have access to freedom of thought, closed off as they are from the outside world and force fed a steady diet of propaganda. In The Orphan Master's Son, Adam Johnson tells the story of Pak Jun Do, raised in an orphanage, in a country where an orphan's only value is their labor and the expend-ability of their lives. This brilliant, thoroughly-researched novel imagines life in that country, from citizens swept off the street and forced to "volunteer" their labor, to "criticism sessions," to the horrors of the gulag, where dying prisoners are drained of their blood. But far from being a mere documentary of life in the DPRK, this is a hugely entertaining, often hilarious novel of switched identity, casual cruelty, and collective delusion.

 

Adam Johnson has said (I'm paraphrasing) that not every person with a story to tell has the skill to write it, so writers must step in and tell their stories for them. With The Orphan Master's Son, he has succeeded at this task brilliantly.

 

 Buy the book or the eBook ($12.99) from Green Apple today! 

Green Apple Commercial #17 Orphan Master's Son
Green Apple Commercial #17 Orphan Master's Son


January events
January 12: Meg Keene's A Practical Wedding

practical wedding We'll be hosting local writer, blogger and wedding planner Meg Keene for a launch party for her new guide to a stress-free, realistic, and fun wedding--A Practical Wedding: Creative Ideas for Planning a Beautiful, Affordable, and Meaningful Celebration. Keene is the creator of apracticalwedding.com, a wedding planning blog that has been featured The Wall Street Journal, Glamour, Feministing.com and more. If you're planning a wedding now, or haven't started and need some inspiration and reassurance, this launch party is a perfect time to get some ideas. 

Details: Thursday, January 12 at 6pm at Green Apple Books. Free.
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January 23: Tom Davis's A Legacy of Madness: Recovering my Family frlegacy of madnessom Generations of Mental Illness

Author Tom Davis will be appearing in the Granny Smith Room on January 23rd at 7PM to read from and discuss his memoir--A Legacy of Madness. Through this intimate memoir we join Davis on a personal odyssey to ensure that he and his siblings recover their family legacy, one plagued by mental health disorders. In the end, we witness Davis's powerful transition as he makes peace with the past and heals through forgiveness and compassion for his family and himself. Join us on January 23rd to pick up a signed copy of the book and to hear more of Davis' compelling story.
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January 24: Julia Scheeres & Julia Flynn Siler, a Litquake Epicenter event at Tosca

lost kingdom Julia Flynn Siler will be discussing her book Lost Kingdom: Hawaii's Last Queen, the Sugar Kings, and America's First Imperial Adventure. The book takes readers on a tour through the fascinating history of Hawaii in a tale of one of the most breathtaking land grabs of the Gilded Age.  

 

Julia Scheeres will be discussing her book A Thousand Lives: the Untold Story of Hope, Deception, and Survival at Jonestown, which tells the story of Jonestown as it has never been told before. New York Times bestselling author Julia Scheeres drew from thousands of recently declassified FBI documents and audiotapes, as well as rare videos and interviews, to piece together an unprecedented and compelling history of the doomed camp, focusing on the people who lived there. Her own experiences at an oppressive reform school in the Dominican Republic, thousand livesdetailed in her unforgettable debut memoir Jesus Land, gave her unusual insight into this story.  

 

We'll see you at Tosca on January 24th for a night of fascinating history, great authors, and tasty cocktails.   

 

Details: Tuesday, January 24, 6:30pm at Tosca (242 Columbus at Broadway). Free.  21+ only.

 

Five New Books We Like
The Mamap and the territoryp and the Territory by Michel Houellebecq (Knopf)
 
"It's been 6 years since Michel Houellebecq's last novel was published in English, but from the very beginning of The Map and the Territory, it's obvious the years haven't tamed France's best and most controversial novelist. Though more polished than his previous work, it lacks none of the sly humor, incisiveness or, frankly, the cringe-worthy moments he's become (in)famous for. It's barely 2012 and I've already read the best contemporary novel I'm likely to read all year."
--Sparks

Pity the Billionaire by Thomas Frank (Metropolitan)pity the billionaire

Staffer Kevin D. has this to say about Thomas Frank's latest latest book of political commentary: "As with his last book, The Wrecking Crew, I'm telling everyone to read Frank's Pity the Billionaire, a harrowing, scrupulously sourced and footnoted report delivering an incisive examination of, as he puts it, the 'purified market populism of the right-wing renaissance.'" [$11.99 eBook here]
 
Distrust Distrust That Particular Flavor by William Gibson (Putnam)

Science fiction writer William Gibson's first collection of essays, spanning a period of 30 years, is full of the observations you'd expect from the man who coined the term "cyberspace." Ranging on topics as diverse as his favorite writers (Orwell and Borges), his obsession with collecting watches, and tourism, Distrust that Particular Flavor provides a new window into the work of one of the great visionaries of our age. [$12.99 eBook here]
lamberto
Lamberto, Lamberto, Lamberto by Gianni Rodari (Melville House)

Gianni Rodari has been called the greatest Italian children's book author of the 20th century, but don't let that fool you. His best stories, like this one about a man's quest for immortality, exist somewhere in the realm between fairy tale and parable, suitably enjoyable and rewarding for both children and adults.


No mountain is merely a mountain, so it shouldn't be surprising that the greatest of them, Everest, became a stirring symbol of human triumph over the forces of nature. Wade Davis' account of Mallory's quest to reach the summit of Everest is a sweeping epic, placing the conquest in context.  Ranging from the bloody battlefields of WWI Europe to the snow-swept peaks of the Himalayas, Into the Silence is everything you could ask for in an adventure book. [$15.99 eBook here]

Literature in Translation
Among the improvements we've made in the design and content on our website is a "Read Around the World" section.  Only about 3% of the books published in English each year are translations, and we want to help call attention to the overlooked gems from the larger world.  To that end, we have a display in the front of the annex for browsing, and now our site has begin to feature recent favorites, too. 
World

Here are two recent titles, for example:

why the child Why the Child Is Cooking in Polenta by Aglaja Veteranyi (Dalkey Archive)
 
What is it about circus families? It's almost as if they are forced to suffer for the happiness they provide with their death-defying stunts and slapstick comedy. In Veteranyi's darkly comic novel, this suffering weighs heavily on one of the precocious daughters of an exiled Romanian circus family, leaving one with an impression that's hard to shake.


Against Art by Tomas Espedal (Seagull)against art

Against Art is narrated by a man at his writing desk, grappling as much with writing a first sentence as he is with loves and losses both recent and in the distant past. Espedal's writing expertly balances the immediate setting --  the inner struggle to bring pen to paper and begin something after a series of tragic endings -- with frequent dips into the narrator's childhood memories and family legacy, gradually becoming an answer to the question "how did we get here?" The result is a novel that professes itself to be about not writing, while subtly, almost secretly, being a novel about living.
Clearance Sale areas
Our Spring Cleaning has started early:
  • boxed holiday cards are buy one, get two free.
  • select remainders on the mezzanine are at least 75% off  
  • 2012 Calendars are 25% off but still 11.5/12ths useful! 
Thanks for reading.
 
Sincerely,
 
Pete et al
Green Apple Books and Music
415-387-2272