Moves afoot

It's that time of year. Calendars are almost gone (though there's a decent selection left at 50% off if you're not too picky). Which means we have 15 bookcases to fill until September.

Each year at this time of January, Tetris dreams plague my nights and sales per linear foot analysis fills my days. This year, we're moving with a little more boldness than in years past.

In short, we're responding to change: our customers are buying fewer CDs and DVDs but more books for kids. Audio books are losing ground as cookbooks hold steady. Blank books and journals still sell well, and graphic novels don't work as ebooks (yet?), so we'll expand those and contract other sluggish areas.

Which is a long way of saying two things:

1) Pardon our dust as we move. In the end, the store will offer more of what you want and less of what you don't want; and

2) Please ask if your favorite section moved.

It'll take a few weeks to move everything, get new store maps ready, etc. Meanwhile, we're here to help, and there are bargains to be had in new DVDs, CDs, calendars, holiday cards, etc.

Сигизму́нд Домини́кович Кржижано́вский

Sigizmund Krzhizanovsky is not the name one usually connects with one of the great early twentieth century writers. In his own time Krzhizanovsky was not even known as a great writer in Moscow. Spain's Enrique Vila-Matas could have added him to Bartleby & Co. as a silent writer...

With NYRB's release of Memories of the Future, this is not a likely mistake to occur again.

Krzhizanovsky described himself as being "known for being unknown." Though he was active in Moscow's literary scene of the 20's he was not widely published or read. It wasn't until 1989 that the Russian scholar, Vadim Perelmute, published the first of a series of stories written by Krzhizanovsky. He has now emerged as a leading Soviet writer, though of course, posthumously.

Memories of the Future is the first English translation of Krzhizanovsky's work, and it is incredible. The strangeness in Krzhizanovsky's world, is one that comes through an observation of the mundane and its eventual transformation into the sinister or twisted.

Just knowing that there are 4 more volumes of Krzhizanovsky's work makes me smile inwardly at knowing that there will be more for me to enjoy in the years to come.

Bye, Dudes / Look How Awesome I've Been

This is officially my last blog entry for the Green Apple Core, and my last day as a Green Appler (for reals this time). I'm moving on to work full-time with my film company, French Press Films (shameless plug). It's been a crazy few years for sure, but my favorite part has definitely been creating the Green Apple commercials.

They started silly and low concept, but then eventually got more and more involved-- you try telling Daniel Handler that "this is the part where the cyborg army attacks."



I know we post that one a lot, sorry. The Kindle videos were huge for us, created by me, Pete, "Simple" Nick, "Internet Sensation" Stephen Sparks, and Alex & Joelle at 4SP Films. They're still raking in thousands of hits. As for the Book of the Month ads, almost every single commercial we've done has garnered responses from the authors (Still waiting for that call, Herzog!). You can watch them all on our YouTube channel here. My favorites are still "Little Bee", and "Conquest of the Useless".

(I'm the creepy dude on the right)

Working at Green Apple has been the best job I've ever had. I have friendships that will last me a lifetime, and piles of books that will last me throughout the upcoming zombie apocalypse. Whether you're a customer or a hard-workin' employee, remember that you are standing in the middle of one of the greatest bookstores on the planet.

BYE!

If you've got 'em, we'll come get 'em

If you've got a bunch of books that you want to get rid of, and i mean a bunch of books (think hundreds, not dozens) we may be able to come to your house armed with a blank check, a grip of empty boxes and at least one strong back to buy those used books and take them away! We call these house calls "Out Buys" and with a little planning, it just may be the easiest way for you to make some extra cash (or trade).

Here are a couple of photos from the collection I purchased yesterday - or at least the halfway stopping point - I'm going back in a couple of weeks for the rest. They don't all look like this, but if the books are good enough (and this batch certainly was), then this is what we're willing to crawl through to help you out. And believe it or not, I've been in worse...

So think of us, the Green Apple used book buyers, when you need to clear some space or just get some extra scratch. We're like The Marines of book buyers, except that we're much sweeter, and some of our hair is longer.

Scam Blog

I'm not reading Stig Staeterbakken's Siamese. Not yet at least. When I do I'll be sure to let everyone know what I think, and whether or not I agree with the New York Times Book Review had to say about it. Before I could pick up the book itself I got a little distracted by this crazy illustration that The Times had found Henning Wagenbreth to do of the novel's two main characters.Pretty creepy. It kind of reminds me of some of the old Nickelodeon stuff that I grew up on. Anyhow, I took a look in to the work of this Wagenbreth guy and was pretty intrigued with what I found. Not only does he have a cool mountain of previous work (that had never caught my eye till now for some reason), he just released a book called 36 Scam Mails From Africa, which is his illustrated version of just that. Sound weird? Well, it is. Go take a look at it.

Oh and if you read Siamese before me, please don't ruin the ending. I hear it's good.

Hairy diversions

I admit. It's a hectic week at Green Apple. As for our blogging team: one Green Appler's out after a bad bike accident (he looks like Frankenstein, but will be OK, and has learned the value of helmets). Another's on vacation, skiing in Tahoe. A third is moving on to pursue his film career. Another has a mean cold. And the rest of us are just trying to keep the books flowing and the register staffed. Such are the trials of this indy bookstore's blog team . . .

So to amuse you, gentle readers, for another day until we have something worthy to share, we offer our mustachios. I don't know quite how it started, but many male Green Applers grow a Christmas Eve mustachio. And most (but not all) shave the very next morning. First, here's 2008's posse.

12/24/2008

And here's 12/24/2009:

12/24/2009

We'll try to have something legitimately book related on the blog tomorrow, I assure you.

Oh, and can you spot the one fake mustachio in 2009's shot?

Math is Hard

In episode 7 of our Book vs. Kindle video series, for absurdity's sake, we had the Kindle "read" The Unimaginable Mathematics of Borges' Library of Babel by William Goldbloom Bloch to the kids. Well, Professor Bloch got wind of it at some point, and last week, we got an email from him with the self-deprecating subject line "Famous author wants to come to your store." While this book is clearly beyond our puerile minds (or mine, at least), we have sold over 40 copies, so we invited Professor Bloch to visit.

Are you up for meeting Professor Bloch? He'll be here this Saturday, January 16th at 2:00 p.m. Even if you have yet to read his insightful (so we are told) mathematical analysis of Borges, come talk math, or whatever it is math people do. We're honored to welcome him. And you.