In Praise of Old Books

Despite the fact that used books occupy 2/3 of the space in our store - and that used book sales support our smaller stock of new books - there's a tendency for us to blog almost exclusively about new (in both senses: new as in unused and new as in recently released) books. There are reasons for this: mostly due to our, well, quaint point of sales system and the sheer volume of secondhand books that come across the buy counter in a single day, it would be almost impossible for us to catalog every used book.*

Then, of course, there's the tendency to tout the new, the in-the-news, and ultimately for our purposes here, those books we can link to.

But, sadly (or fortunately, for those who prefer to retain some distinction between the virtual and real worlds), there are thousands of books that fall into none of those categories, most broadly those books we don't stock new for whatever reason (space is usually a determining factor), out-of-print books, remainders, etc. Thousands of these kinds of books will never make it onto our blog, even if they're in our hearts. They'll sit on our shelves, unlit by the glare of the computer screen, waiting for the winds of fate to blow someone toward them; some sooner, others later; some by chance, others by necessity.

So while we continue to sing the praises of our monthly picks, the latest work by one of our favorite authors, or the book gracing the front page of the New York Times Book Review, remember that the serendipitous charm of a used bookstore - and for the browser, the curious, the hopeful-for-happy-accidents, the reason to get off the internet and stand in a physical space overburdened with possibility in the form of books - is that you just might find something unexpected. Or something you've been searching a lifetime for.





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* Changes, I'm told, are imminent; which means that soon this post will be as antiquated as our MS-DOS based inventory program.

Givin' a Shout Out for My Booksellin' Homies!

We had a customer come into the store yesterday looking for a book for which he had very little information. The clues that he had were: it is set in France, and it has either an animal or a fruit or vegetable in the title. Now, for you booksellers in the audience, or anyone who just wants to play at home, the answer is at the bottom of this blogpost, so don't scroll down until you've made your guess.

I think it is a general misconception that bookstore customers believe they are annoying booksellers when they ask for help finding a book about which they have very little information. The opposite is true: booksellers live for the customer who knows only that the book they are looking for has a white cover and is set in Lapland (Let The Northern Lights Erase Your Name by Vendela Vida, too easy). Try this sometime: walk up to a bookstore information counter, and say you are looking for a book, but you don't know the title or author. My guess is you will see any other booksellers who might have overheard your query slowly drift towards to conversation. It is like being asked to play Trivial Pursuit in the middle of your workday, and the less information the customer proffers the better, so that if the answer is arrived at, bragging rights are claimed.

Well, such bragging rights go out to my man Cole, who hesitated not the least when presented with the question above.

Green Apple Commercial #13: Tom McCarthy's "C"

The Upcoming Book of the Month:
Available Tuesday, September 7th
Tom McCarthy's "C"

Following on the heels of Remainder (2007), a book Zadie Smith called "one of the greatest English novels of the last ten years," comes Tom McCarthy's dazzlingly complex and riveting novel, C. Set at the turn of the 20th century, C - a letter signifying a number of things, from communications to coincidence to cocaine, from ciphers to Cairo to crackpots - tells the story of Serge Carrefax (another contributing "C") as he navigates through the onset of modernity, moving from an idyllic childhood in the British countryside to a series of tumultuous and formative events (he's an airman in WW1, a POW, a debaucherous student in post-war London, a spy in Egypt...). As much an adventure story as a novel of ideas, C is unlike anything you will read this year - which is why we're so excited to select it as our "Book of the Month."

LIKE!

It seems that Facebook has pie in its...well...face again recently, when it was announced that they are taking legal action against the educational website, Teachbook, due to perceived copyright infringement on their "...book" brand.

Smacks of capriciousness to me, but I'm thrilled at their official statement on this matter, as quoted in Wired, "Barry Schnitt, a Facebook spokesman, pointed out that “we have no complaint against Kelly Blue Book or Green Apple Books...”" Sounds a bit like Green Apple is Facebook's favorite bookstore, right? 500,000,000 users can't be wrong!

Now click below to enjnoy something completely different, spotted on Laughing Squid this morning:

Optics

Hey there. If you happen to be the Green Apple customer who left six pairs of sunglasses and two pairs of reading glasses behind maybe about, oh I don't know, two and a half years ago, well we're still holding them behind the front counter for you. You can come pick them up any time we're open. Just ask. Thank you.

GAB Staff.