Super Bowl, Schmuper Bowl - an option.

My favorite weekend of the year is upon us, but no, it won’t involve being glued to the television watching Super Bowl commercials. Rather, this Saturday and Sunday is the return of The San Francisco Antiquarian Book Print & Paper Fair, held at the Concourse Exhibition Center.

Over 200 dealers from all across the globe will be hawking their wares, and while I’m always impressed with the scope of tomes on display, it should go without saying that Booth 312 will dazzle you the most. Was that too subtle? Then how about this: Green Apple Books will bring the best of our best, and we will be at Booth 312 all weekend.

What is the best of our best, you ask? How about a batch of Arion Press titles, including The Great Gatsby and Coney Island of the Mind; The Variorum Edition of the Poems of W.B. Yeats, SIGNED by Yeats; The deluxe edition of Danny Lyon’s Knave of Hearts, limited to 50 copies, and including a SIGNED print; SIGNED first editions from Ansel Adams, Haruki Murakami, Wayne Thiebaud, Maurice Sendak, Edward Abbey, Tasha Tudor, Robert Crumb, and many others. Did I say dazzling? I do believe that I did. But without a doubt, my personal favorite is the true first edition of Ambrose Bierce’s landmark story collection, Can Such Things Be? published in 1893. Oh, wait – maybe it’s the hand-numbered copy of Raymond Pettibon’s Pig Cupid. No, it would really have to be the beautiful, SIGNED first edition of The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test – man, what a way out signature. AAAAaahhhhh!

Please slide by Booth 312 and say “Hi” – show hours are from 10 to 7 on Saturday, Feb. 4^th and from 11 to 5 on Sunday the 5^th. Free appraisal service on-site during Sunday, and a discounted admission coupon is available HERE.

Sign here, and here, and here, and here, etc. . .

It's been said that a book is a present that you can open again and again. Cheesy, yes - but true. Obviously, I think that a book is just about the best gift you could possibly give or receive, but not all books are equal.

Indeed, Green Apple Books stocks plenty of new releases that would suit the stockings of passionate readers galore, but the difference between, "Oh neat, I've been curious about this tome" and "OMFG, I'm never letting this out of my sight!!!" may be as simple as the swipe of a pen. Enter the Signed Copy.

On a quick walk past our Main Store displays this afternoon, I spotted stacks of signed copies from some of literature's brightest lights: Jonathan Safran Foer, Sherman Alexie, Lorrie Moore, Michael Connelly and Paul Madonna, just to name a few. And there's no buyer premium here - these are all selling for the list price at most, and some are even discounted 20%. Throw in free gift wrapping (shhhh...), curbside delivery and maybe some Synthetic Owl Puke, and the lucky ones on your list will think you most considerate and unique!

And that doesn't even include some of the rare signed gems that we keep behind glass: Truman Capote, James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Nixon and more than 10 by Bukowski. Plus, I think that we've still got the Signed Limited of Crumb's Book of Genesis for the really nice (or naughtiest) one on your list, as well.

Of course, stock of these unique items is limited to quantity on hand, and may change in the time it took me to write this (it's pretty busy these days...) so come by early - we are opening at 9:00AM through December 24th. Or give us a call. We're here to help - it's what we love!

Some days are like this

I've been buying used books for Green Apple the better part of two decades by now, and I can honestly say that the unexpected nature of book buying has contributed in a huge way to my sustained interest in my work. From day to day I have absolutely no idea what gems will walk past Mergatroid and enter our front door. But the real kick is when I make house-calls and purchase entire private collections - we call those appointments "out buys." These can be hit-or-miss (like the one time I entered a person's "library" and encountered an entire wall of books, sliced down the middle, so that there was only the 3 or 4 inches near the spine left. "The shelves are too narrow for the whole books" the owners told me. I didn't tell them what I was thinking_), but when the books are good, it can really pay off. Just like last week when I filled the store truck to the brim, twice, buying an AWESOME batch of stuff. . .

So, calling all H.P. Lovecraft fans!!!

Check the horror section over the next couple of weeks when hundreds of books, games, comics and even tarot cards will make their presence known. These books are not being listed on-line, so Cthulhu Mythos is only in the house, yo! And not just H.P. but catalogues of his library, primal sources, works inspired by and much, much more. But that's just the Cthulhu stuff. We also boosted our metaphysics section by like 500 titles. And magick (note the "K") we got tons. Like the rare 'Lords of the Left-Hand Path' or Tyson's "Three Books of Occult Philosophy." How about a lovely hardcover copy in dustjacket of 'The Grimoire of Armadel'? And it goes on and on and on. . . A big batch of stuff like this doesn't come in everyday, but when it does, the buzz around the store is palpable.

So if you've got a yen for the dark stuff, swing on by. By the way, did you know that Anton LaVey was a regular customer for years? And if you've got a large library that needs to be gone, give us a ring, chances are we can help!