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Books and other fun at Green Apple
June 2012 (month 536 on Clement!)
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Book of the Month
June Events
New Books We Like
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Greetings!
Ah, summer.  It's great to see all the youngsters stocking up on their summer reading.  How about you?  Need some recommendations?  Read on or come in from the fog and say hi.

Here's the line-up for today's email: 
Philosophy Nook
  • our Book of the Month, guaranteed to please; 
  • four author events to stretch your brain; and  
  • seven new books we love.  
And remember--if you read electronically, you can buy eBooks from Green Apple. More HERE.

If you can't stop in soon, keep in touch digitally via Facebook, Twitter, our blog, or Tumblr. 

We hope to see you soon.  Read on!
June's Book of the Month

Season of the Witch: Enchantment, Terror and Deliverance in the City of Love by David Talbot 

 

Our June Book of the Month, guaranteed to please, is Season of the Witch.  Here's co-owner Kevin Hunsanger's shelf-talker:     season of the witch

    

David Talbot is a literary razor, slicing the torrid tales of San Francisco's history out of the fog, out of the past, and placing them firmly in our current cultural milieu.  In The Season of the Witch, Salon Magazine founder Talbot delivers a book that is such a breezy read, that the decades fly from the pages as if caught in a Pacific wind. Diggers, hippies and Hell's Angels; murdered politicians and crooked cops; transgender vaudevillian performers, race riots and the SLA -- all come springing back to life like a deal with the devil.  And if you don't know the difference between the Zebra and the Zodiac, then you definitely need to read this book.

Buy the book (or the $14.99 eBook) from Green Apple today!  

June events
As with all Green Apple events, if you can't attend but want an inscribed copy, just give us a call (415-387-2272).  Prepay and we'll hook you up.
June 14: SF Chronicle film critic Mick LaSalle

We're pleased to welcome film critic and writer Mick LaSalle for a discussion of his newest book, The Beauty of the Real: What Hollywood Can Learn from Contemporary French Actresses, which intelligently argues that French cinema allows its female characters to be more complex, older, andBeauty of the Real more "real" than their US counterparts. The Beauty of the Real examines the different ways that France and the US cast and receive their actresses, in addition to profiling some of the French actresses who are doing groundbreaking work in cinema today (but are somewhat unknown on this side of the Atlantic.)

 

About the Author: Mick LaSalle has been the film critic for the San Francisco Chronicle since 1985. He is the author of Complicated Women: Sex and Power in Pre-Code Hollywood and Dangerous Men: Pre-Code Hollywood and the Birth of the Modern Man, both of which were named "Book of the Month" by Turner Classic Movies. LaSalle has been a panelist at the Venice and Berlin Film Festivals and has served on the jury for the Cinema for Peace Gala in Berlin.

 

This is sure to be an engaging discussion of an important book. Don't miss it!

 

Details: Thursday, June 14 at Green Apple at 7:00 pm. Free.  

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June 19: The Harvey Milk Interviews (at The HRC Store) 

 

Join Green Apple at The HRC Store on Tuesday, June 19th at 6:00pm to help celebrate the life and legacy of Harvey Milk, and the release of The Harvey Milk Interviews: In His Own Words. The book, Harvey Milk edited by Vince Emery, is a collection of transcripts from 39 never-before published interviews, as well as debates with John Briggs over the notorious 1978 Prop 6. Also included are conversations that reveal Milk as impatient, sarcastic, attention-seeking, short-tempered, confrontational, and courageous. The Harvey Milk Interviews is a ground-breaking treasure trove for anyone wanting a deeper understanding of who Harvey Milk was as a person and how he inspired the world.

 

To celebrate the book at the HRC Store (which is in the original location of Milk's famed camera shop), we've gathered an amazing array of Bay Area talents to read from and discuss sections from The Harvey Milk Interviews - notable participants will include the novelists KM Sohnlein and Alvin Orloff; poet and editor Kevin Killian, cultural arts editor Marke Bieschke, and activist Tommi Avicolli Mecca. A percentage of the evening's book sales will be donated to LYRIC and their support of LGBT youth. 

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June 21: Colin Dickey, author of Afterlives of the Saints

 

Afterlives We'll be at Saint James Episcopal Church on June 21st at 7PM for a visit from Colin Dickey, author of a great new book called  Afterlives of the Saints, a collection essays on some of the most remarkable -- and strangest -- stories of the Sainthood. The book moves through Renaissance anatomy and the Sistine Chapel, Borges' Library of Babel, the history of spontaneous human combustion, the dangers of masturbation, the pleasures of castration, "and so forth" - each essay focusing on the story of a particular (and particularly strange) saint. With material like that, Dickey's discussion will surely be fascinating.   

 

Details: Thursday, June 21 at St. James (4620 California Street at 8th Ave) at 7pm.  Free. 

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June 22: Ernest Cline, author of Ready Player One

 

We're very excited to bring you a reading with Ernest Cline, author of Ready Player One, a previous Green Apple Book of the Month and a now longtime bestseller on the Green Apple shelves. Nothing comes closer to summing up this novel than the pitch Green Appler Ashley wrote for the book last fall, so here it goes:

 

Ready Player One This debut novel from the man who brought us the 2008 film Fanboys delivers the geekdom, and how. To get an idea of what this unique take on a quest novel is like, take one part Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, one part 9th level wizard, douse it all heavily with MTV (when MTV actually showed videos), thoroughly mix in every John Hughes movie that features at least three actors from the Brat Pack, add a few dashes of the truck sequence from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and sprinkle with Monty Python, all while listening to your totally 80s mix-tape compilations and then you will begin to comprehend the treasure that is this book.

 

Intrigued? Confused? Super pumped to read it again? Come check out Ernest Cline's reading and enjoy the fun that is Ready Player One live and in person, just in time for its release in paperback. See you there.

 

 Details: Friday, June 22 at Green Apple at 7:00pm.  Free.
Seven New Books We Like

Chasing VenusAndrea Wulf's exciting history of the scientific quest to understand, predict, and chronicle  the transit of Venus across the face of the sun stands out among the handful of books published to coincide with 2012's transit--which happens on June 6. Full of remarkable characters and daring adventure, Wulf's history proves that while the heavens provide us with sublime spectacles, there are no less magnificent endeavors happening here on earth. [$13.99 eBook here]


Antigonick by Anne Carson (New Directions)

   

Antigonick is a new interpretation of Sophocles' Antigone by the incomparable Anne  Carson. Re-working a classic tale is nothing new for Carson, whose interpretationCarson of ancient texts is so unique and poetic that it demands to be read as poetry of her own creation -- in this case, lending Antigone a modern voice and wit that brings the tragedy into a whole new light. What really makes this book a lovely object to leaf through, though, areBianca Stone's beautiful accompanying illustrations, done on translucent pages that overlap Carson's handwritten text. Fittingly, turning each page feels something like dusting off a relic. Antigonick is a marvelous way to read a classical tragedy, and a beautiful book in every sense.   

 

The NatNatural Navigatorural Navigator: The Rediscovered Art of Letting Nature Be Your Guide by Tristan Gooley (Experiment)

   

Gooley's helpful and informative book is an ideal introduction to the lost skill of navigating by natural signs rather than gadgets. Full of facts (most tennis courts are aligned north-south), clarifications (moss doesn't only grow on the north side of trees) and helpful hints (want to know how to determine south by looking at the moon?), Gooley proves himself a charming narrator in this delightful book. Ideal for the hiker, camper, or wanderer.Threats [ $12.71 eBook here] 

 

Threats by Amelia Gray (Farrar, Straus and Giroux)

 

Threats is an ethereal, strange novel of love, loss, and--I'm not sure. It's involves a weird protagonist, an odd plot, and a quirky narrative. There's blood--I know that much.  But trying to figure out what's going on is much of the joy of this mysterious, sorrowful novel. [$9.99 eBook here] 

 

 Walaschek's Dream by Giovanni Orelli  (Dalkey Archive)

Eugene Walaschek was a Russian-born, Swiss-naturalized soccer player in the mid-20th Walaschek's Dream century who, if not for a fortunate stroke of fate (at the hand of Paul Klee), would today be entirely forgotten. Taking as a starting point one of Klee's lesser-known works, Giovanni Orelli fashions a collage of fact and fancy, playfully meditating on the interstices of sport, art, and philosophy. With characters ranging from local tavern habitues ("Asshat" and "Snoozy") to great artists and thinkers (Van Gogh and Schopenhauer), Orelli's first novel translated into English is a daring piece of literature that just might be a masterpiece.Welcome to Paradise

  

Welcome to Paradise by Mahi Binebine (Tin House)


This is a powerful, concise novel and a heart-breaking glimpse into the desperation of North African emigrants. The author is a Moroccan artist of some renown, and this is the first book of his translated into English.  Take a journey to a world very different from your own. [$11.21 eBook here] 

 
Oliver by Judith Rossell (Harper) 

Oliver is curious, so he heads off down the bathtub drain on an adventure. By all means follow him! This is perfect for kids age 3-6, and could be seen as an homage to Where the Wild Things Are.  

Oliver  

 

 
Thanks for reading.
 
Sincerely,
 
Pete et al
Green Apple Books and Music
415-387-2272