Books of the year 2010

No, I'm not going to list them all here, but if you are interested in some of my favorites, click here to visit the NPR podcast area where you can easily download my appearance on this morning's Your Call Show.

In addition to highlighting some of my picks, callers were plenty, offering up both book suggestions, as well as giving big audio hugs to their favorite independent bookstores in the Bay Area. Lots of love from the Santa Cruz area, by the way. . .

Thanks Rose, and KALW, for having me on; and thanks also to Rachel from Booksmith for joining me on the show, and for trying to get a word in edgewise - there was soooooo much to talk about!

~Have a very merry one, and we'll see you in 2011~

kevin

Christmas Carols

Chistmas Carols are proven to increase jolliness. I just made that up. Furthermore, R. Kelly's new album is great and the Christmas remix of the title track totally makes it even more worth bringing home to your family and playing again and again. Buy it from us!





Does anyone know any good Christmas rap music?

The best books I read this year

Ladies and gentlemen, this is Nina

Being prompted to choose favorites can sometimes be an annoying experience. It reminds me of the save-or-kill scenarios that people sometimes bring up, e.g. "If you were on a crashing plane with your mother and father and there was only one parachute to save one of their lives, who would you give it to?". Considering my rather confused sense of morals I usually don't participate in such mind games or arbitrarily and generously respond, "He who has not made peace with the Lord must live another day". This time around though, when asked to select my two most beloved books of 2010, it was easy to comply and I left the Lord out of it, too. See below my shelf talkers for two literary gems I'll always hold dear to my heart:

Dolly City by Orly Castel-Bloom

If I had written this book, I'd be so purged of all the vile filth festering in my mind, that I'd bake wondrous pastries for strangers out of pure saintly impulse. That's how satisfyingly sadistic Castel-Bloom's little masterpiece is. Gratuitously violent isn't a sufficient tag, as this story is also a finely crafted satire of statehood (Israel) and the art of mothering (fucking up) a child. Orly, you're my new favorite matriarch and I'd light your cigar for you anytime.

(Dolly City was also described as the "the most important Israeli novel of the last four decades" by Tablet's Liel Leibovitz)

Heartsnatcher by Boris Vian

This is a queer, cockeyed dog of a novel. In it, horses are crucified for their unwholesome sexual appetites, the elderly are auctioned off for the young to abuse and farm animals get days off. Prominently featured, too, is one of my favorite character types, the overbearing and reliably psychotic mother. For a taste of Vian's comedic skill, read pages 58-59, starting with "Vulgar, vulturous, vulpine villagers!"

(Boris Vian had a particularly interesting life. He was a Jazz trumpeter, film actor, author, playwright, cabaret singer, translator, record company executive and Transcendent Satrap of the College de Pataphysique. The man also had a heart condition and, to make up for the lost hours anticipated by an early death, hardly ever slept. He calculated that at the age of 40, he would have lived as long as someone 102 years old who had slept normally. He died in 1959, aged 39, watching a film version of his satirical erotic novel, J'irai cracher sur vos tombes (I Spit on Your Grave), of which he strongly disapproved.)

Saturday's VERY Special Guest

Well, the rain that fell on Clement Street today was a little less white and fluffy than what falls on the North Pole, but that didn't stop SANTA CLAUS from making an appearance at Green Apple Books this afternoon, raising donations for the San Francisco Fire Fighter's Toy program.

Santa also raised quite a few eyebrows with his jokes and impersonations - my favorite was Christopher Walken from Pulp Fiction, and Woody Allen definitely kept things from being too gentile. . .and I think Marlon Brando from Last Tango in Paris might keep me off of butter til at least January. Still, we raised $250 in cash, and quite a grab-bag of books and toys - thanks to all who donated, you are certainly "going to Santa Heaven."

Santa also wanted me to mention that he has a very close friend named Will Franken who has been performing stand-up comedy in the Bay Area for years and years. Will has a special holiday themed one-man show on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday nights next week at The Eureka Theatre called "Texas Chainsaw Yuletide", and both Santa and I think it would be a wonderful way to get in the holiday spirit. Tickets are available here.

Happy Holidays from Green Apple, The San Francisco Fire Department, and most of all, from Santa Claus!

The best books I read in 2010

Next up: Josie

(Two of) the best books I read in 2010

One of my favorite books of the year, Sheila Heti’s How Should a Person Be? is exactly what its title implies: an inquiry into how to live, and how to do it well. Through a fictionalized account of her personal life, Heti explores the ways in which self-doubt, capriciousness, and the ego are tied to one’s ability to live a creative life in the modern age. Yes, I know, this all sounds so serious. Or maybe it doesn’t. Either way, this novel is a rare gem of modern literature that effectively combines intellectual, philosophical musings with a narrative that is creative, absorbing, and quite funny, without being pretentious. How Should a Person Be? is about what it means to make art, and what it means to be a human. After finishing it over the course of a few days, this book stuck with me for weeks. I even read passages of it aloud to a friend, something I rarely do. This is a fine book from a fine Canadian author, one that made oh-10 just a little bit better.

[Unfortunately, How Should a Person Be? has not yet been published in the U.S. But, never fear. An excerpt from the book was published in the current issue of n+1, which is available right here at Green Apple Books. And, the book itself can easily be ordered through the Canadian publisher House of Anansi Press. Also, Sheila Heti has a great website where you can read a lot of her writing, including excerpts from her three books, as well as some great articles and interviews.]

I read my other favorite book way back in February, in a single sitting. Tove Jansson’s The True Deceiver quickly pulled me into the stark world of a cold Scandinavian winter, and the complex life of one uncompromising, socially isolated woman. Though the tale begins quite modestly, this story quickly compounds and calls into question what even the most seemingly moral among us will do for what we want, or what we think we need. The darkness and vulnerability of Jansson’s characters and their relationships with one another left me contemplative, if not haunted. Understated and beautifully written, this book has continued to stand out among everything I have read in the last year, in the best way possible.

Move Over Pantone 15-5519

The "inviting, luminous hue" of Pantone 15-5519, the color that has so magically characterized this year is going to have to move over pretty soon to make way for the "dynamic reddish pink" of Pantone 18-2120! That's right, people. The Pantone 2011 color of the year has indeed been announced, Honeysuckle, promising to embolden us in the face the everyday troubles of the coming year! Verve and vigor, everyone!
In further color news, Color: A Natural History of the Palette, Victoria Finlay's new book is on our shelves in voluminous amounts. I'm taking the time to direct your attention to it because, other than the fact that I think it's a great book, I'm worried that it's a book that will be widely overlooked this season. Within it's pages we find the story of Finlay enthusiastically seeking out the origin of individual colors on our palate, many of which have bizarre and intriguing stories behind them, involving things such as insect invasions, human urine, and the off mining disaster or two. I think that the cover of the book itself, as well as the blurbs printed on the back of it prove to be a bit misleading, giving the book a bit of an Eat, Pray, Love kind of vibe, which is a little unfair (and that's not to say anything poor about Eat, Pray, Love necessarily, but aside from travel, the similarities are nonexistent).

I wouldn't have gravitated to Finlay's book at all if it weren't for my own personal interest in design, and truth be told I thought that it looked a little dull upon my first assessment, but upon opening it I was pleasantly surprised to find a text filled composed unique of travelogue and little known historical facts. Like any good history of a single object (or in this case maybe concept?), it's about so much more than the object itself. Did you know that there are colors today that are slowly on their way out of existence? I mean, who really thinks about color these days anyway? Who's trying to get to the bottom of this situation? Really?!

Get 'em while you can...

I'm not sure if you've heard the news yet, but the San Francisco Giants are Champions of the World!!!

Relive each and every out of the 2010 World Series with this deluxe edition DVD set. 8 disks contain all World Series games, games five and six from the NLCS, and a bonus disk of the season's highlights. PLUS (and this is a big one) - PLUS, you can finally give Cluck & McGarble the mute and watch entire games with our own KNBR broadcast crew calling the shots.

This DVD set is available in-store only, and they are flying fast; if you want to put one of these under someone's tree, you best call us quick: 415-387-2272

Giants deluxe DVD - $79.98

Listening to Kuip, Kruk, Miller and Flemming instead of those other two guys - Priceless...