Video on SF booksellers from Mother Jones

Green Apple has certainly been enjoying all the attention that our Books vs Kindle videos have been garnering - and rest assured that the best is yet to come (don't miss #10). Thanks to everyone who has passed them on to friends, to all who have left comments, and those who have mentioned them to me in person. All of us here send out a big hug of gratitude!

Mother Jones magazine was by Green Apple Books recently to interview me for a video of theirs called 'Independent Bookstores (and why we love them).' In addition to Green Apple, they also feature Cover to Cover, and in what may be their final public appearance, Stacey's.

I love the tone of this, and I hope that its message rings as true for you as it does for me. Thanks MoJo for including us! Enjoy. . .

The Book vs. the Kindle, Round 7: Storytime

OK. We have not yet been fair OR balanced, but now it's just going to get gratuitous. Yes, we will shamelessly use our very own children to illustrate the value of the printed book. Enjoy, spread the word, and buy a kid a book.

August Book of the Month: The Big Rewind!

The Green Apple AV Club has teamed up with the kids at French Press Films to bring you a fancy new video for our August Book of the Month, The Big Rewind by Nathan Rabin.

This isn't just your average pop culture memoir peppered with references and snark-- while that's expected of Rabin, one of the head writers of the Onion's notorious AV Club, The Big Rewind is the surprisingly moving story of Rabin's tumultuous childhood, his upbringing through various group and foster homes, reconnecting with his father, and how becoming a critic actually saved his life. Through it all, Rabin's writing is hilarious, but most importantly, genuine.

The Book vs. the Kindle, Round 6: Finding the right read

Now let's pit the Kindle's search function against a bookseller's knowledge. Surely a handheld computer can help this young lady find just the right book for her boyfriend? Comeback time for the Kindle?

The Book vs. the Kindle, Round 5: The Icebreaker

Who has the smooth moves with the ladies? It's Round 5 of the smackdown between The Book and Amazon's Kindle e-reader thing. Let's check out the action:




(note: many comments have focused on how other e-readers are superior to the Kindle. We agree, and we're not against e-readers, per se. We just think the Kindle will soon be the 8-track of e-readers. And we're trying to keep our business thriving, of course. And we're just having fun. We hope you are, too).

The Book vs. the Kindle, Round 4: Nap Time

In episode 4 of 10 of the Book vs. Kindle smackdown, see what happens when a tired reader succumbs to sleep. Warning: graphic images of Jeff Bezos laughing. . . .

ACTION PACK'D

A while back my buddy Derek Charm and I were having a conversation about children's entertainment. Specifically, cartoons on the television. Now I hope I'm not losing the interest of anyone right off, I know this blog is primarily to be about books, but I promise I'll get there.

I'm not highly familiar with a lot of the cartoons aimed for young audiences today. I don't catch Nickelodeon as much as I'd like. It seems to me though, that kids have it pretty low impact compared to the weird stuff that I was growing up on. I was born in 1983, my friend Derek in '82. This means that by the time we were around eight or nine there were basically two fields that our viewing interests fell in-

a) The by that time dated Hanna-Barbera cartoons, full of references way over our heads. ( as a kid I remember watching an episode of Scooby-Doo guest starring Jonathan Winters and puzzling over who the heck he was the whole episode).

b) The then emerging cartoon programming directed towards adults, i.e. The Simpsons, Ren & Stimpy, etc.

So what is my point? Well, what my pal and I came to conclude is that during this period of time, while adults were trying to figure out just what was appropriate for an animated character to be doing on public television, we were in the midst of an important artistic gestation. We started drawing comics, writing, and without really realizing it were equally influenced by both the dated styles of the 60s and 70s (sorry if that makes anyone feel old), and the "twisted" modern cartoons and comics of the time. And of course we weren't the only ones. The current hit show The Venture Brothers (a Green Apple staff favorite, and a personal recommendation of my own) is a perfect example of the marriage of those two concepts.

I take cartooning very seriously, as does Derek Charm. It's not only is it a challenging medium to master, but it is still very young. Keeping one's work fresh and exciting, while still hailing back to a number of established, "functional" styles can prove to be difficult indeed. That being said I am proud to present that Green Apple Books will now be carrying Derek Charm's ACTION PACK. The book is 36 pages of comics and activities, printed in handy digest size and genuinely quite funny. Here is a quick preview of what you're in for: