Events

Come check out the latest in a series of creative collaborations by New York City artists and friends Zachary Lipez, Nick Zinner (guitarist for the Yeah Yeah Yeahs), and Stacy Wakefield, titled Please Take Me Off the Guest List. The trio will be hanging out with us at the Hemlock Tavern for a fantastic mixed-media performance of prose, photography, and music, bringing to life their lovely and multi-faceted project. 

In Please Take Me off the Guest List, Zachary Lipez's essays recount his adventures as a bartender, drug abuser, bookstore clerk, metal fan, miserable adolescent and relentless skirt chaser. His inimitable voice walks the line between self-loathing and hedonistic delight and is biting, moving and extremely funny. Nick Zinner's photographs evoke the world he travels with the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. His always present camera documents decadent late nights as well as blissfully fresh sun-dappled landscapes. His images are rich in narrative and unwaveringly optimistic. The book is edited and designed by their longtime collaborator, book artist Stacy Wakefield. The unique structure she has devised for this book presents Zachary's essays as separate books-within-the-book while the stories built by the photographs course through and around them. Zachary, Nick, and Stacy have produced three previous books together: No Seats on the Party Car, Slept in Beds, and I Hope You Are All Happy Now.

We're anticipating that space for this event is sure to fill up quickly, so be sure to get to the Hemlock Tavern early for this one. See you there. 

We'll be hosting Rick Bass as he discusses his new novel, Nashville Chrome. The novel takes place in the late 1950s and recounts the tale of the Brown siblings, a family band enjoying unprecedented international success, rivaled only by their longtime friend Elvis Presley. By turns mesmerizing and heartbreaking, the novel jumps between the Browns’ promising past and harsh present.  Nashville Chrome hits all the right grace notes with its vivid evocation of an era in American music, while at its heart it is a wrenching meditation on the complexities of fame and of one family—forgotten yet utterly unforgettable when reclaimed by Bass.

Rick Bass' fiction has received O. Henry Awards, numerous Pushcart Prizes, awards from the Texas Institute of Letters, fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation, among others. Most recently, his memoir Why I Came West was a finalist for a National Book Critics Circle Award. Check out Nashville Chrome and don't miss Rick Bass in the store on September 13th.

The busiest writer in San Francisco, Dave Eggers, will be stopping by Green Apple at non on Tuesday, September 14th to sign copies of his award-winning Zeitoun, newly available in paperback.

Zeitoun is a compelling and urgent work of narrative non-fiction that, through the lens of one family's harrowing experience, examines the state of post-hurricane New Orleans and its national and international context in all its complexity. It's tough to put it better or offer more aptly high praise than the New York Times Book Review did, saying, "Imagine Charles Dickens, his sentimentality in check but his journalistic eyes wide open, roaming New Orleans after it was buried by Hurricane Katrina... Eggers' tone is pitch-perfect-suspense blended with just enough information to stoke reader outrage and what is likely to be a typical response: How could this happen in America?"

Eggers is also the editor of McSweeney's, co-founder of the local non-profit writing center 826 Valencia, and author of the Pulitzer-finalist memoir A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius. Don't miss this opportunity to meet and talk to him here in the store, and, if you haven't already, pick up a signed copy of Zeitoun.

Saul Austerlitz will be in the Granny Smith Room on September 16th to talk about his newest book, Another Fine Mess: A History of American Film Comedy. Running the gamut of film history from City Lights to Knocked Up, Another Fine Mess retells the story of American film from the perspective of its unwanted stepbrother--the comedy. Each chapter is devoted primarily to a single performer or director as Another Fine Mess retraces the steps of the American comedy film, filling in the gaps and following the connections that link Mae West to Doris Day, or W. C. Fields to Will Ferrell.

Saul Austerlitz is a New York City based writer whose work has been published in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Slate, the Boston Globe, and other publications. He is the author of Money for Nothing: A History of the Music Video from the Beatles to the White Stripes.

Fred Lyon, a San Francisco native with nearly 70 years as a photographer under his belt, has put together a fascinating picture of our dear city by the bay with his newest collection, San Francisco Then. The prints therein came from a box of old negatives that he found in a filing cabinet from his early years experimenting with photography in the 1940s and 50s-- photographs that had been just gathering dust until now. Newly printed and displayed together for the first time, they offer a candid and raw rendering of San Francisco, pieced together by an artist who loves (and can tell) a good story through words and images alike. This opportunity to meet the man behind the lens and hear his take on San Francisco Then is truly one not to miss.

Ready to take your home cocktail bar to the next level? This book of recipes, chock full of lovely photos, features recipes from bartenders up and down the West Coast, with many of them manning the stick at local establishments like Alembic, Range, Bourbon & Branch, and Nopa. There is a short profile of each of them, along with a bit of their personal philosophy, followed by a recipe or two. But this is not Mr. Boston. You're going to have to hunt down ingredients like Falernum, Aperol and Cynar, along with specialized bitters and garnishes. Or you could just read the book, get in a cab, and go order one directly from one of these mix-masters.

Join Green Apple Books and the authors of Left Coast Libations, along with some of its bartender/contributors at Heaven's Dog for an evening of cocktail talk and conviviality. Check their website, leftcoastlibations.com, for more details.

John Casti will be appearing in the Granny Smith Room to talk about his new book, Mood Matters, which posits that all social events ranging from trends in music and art to the rise and fall of civilizations are influenced by the attitudes a society holds toward the future. He'll be discussing this and other ideas from his book in a multimedia presentation, including a Q&A session and free supplementary texts and graphics for all attendees. 

Casti's writing is a pleasure to read and its contents an eye-opener; come by Green Apple on September 21st to learn more and engage in what is sure to be a fascinating and topical conversation.  

With the publication of his debut novel, Alive in Necropolis, Doug Dorst was celebrated as one of the most original literary voices of his generation -- likened to T.C. Boyle and Denis Johnson, and called a northern California Haruki Murakami. Now, in his collection of short stories, The Surf Guru, his full talent is on display.

In these stories, an old surfing-champion-turned-surfwear- entrepreneur sits on his ocean-front balcony watching a new generation of surfers come of age on the waves, all but one of whom wear wet suits emblazoned with the Surf Guru's name. An acid-tongued, pioneering botanist who has been exiled from the academy composes a series of scurrilous (and hilarious) biographical sketches of his colleagues and rivals, inadvertently telling his own story. A pair of twenty-first- century drifters course through a series of unusual adventures in their dilapidated car, chased west out of one town and into the next, dreaming of hitting the Pacific.

Doug Dorst will be in the store on October 2nd to perform an unusual kind of reading-- over the our store intercom. So, come by to browse and listen, and to meet him afterwards (he will be physically present, really) and pick up a signed copy of The Surf Guru.

We're excited to be teaming up with McSweeney's, Litquake, and the Jewish Community Center for the evening on 10/5 in honor of Adam Levin's debut novel, The Instructions, and the recent release of McSweeney's 35.

The Instructions, one of New York magazine's 20 most anticipated books of the Fall, is an absolutely singular work of fiction by an important new talent. Combining the crackling voice of Philip Roth with the encyclopedic mind of David Foster Wallace, Adam Levin has shaped a world driven equally by moral fervor and slapstick comedy — a novel that is muscular and verbose, troubling and empathetic, monumental, breakneck, romantic, and unforgettable. An already well-worn copy of this novel has been making the rounds with the Green Apple staff, and is certainly earning our highest reccomendation.

McSweeney's 35 features tremendous new stories from Steven Millhauser and Roddy Doyle, a genre-shattering novella from Hilton Als, and a really excellent special section on Norway's finest writers (featuring Per Petterson and the lesser-known Kid Icarus and Blind Margjit.)

This event will include readings, signings, meetings, greetings, and a general good time. We'll see you there.

Kristin Schaal, best known for her roles on The Daily Show and Flight of the Conchords, has teamed up with her husband and fellow Daily Show writer Richard Blomquist on a new book called The Sexy Book of Sexy Sex.

You're already intrigued by this, right?

A humorous guide to getting it on, John Hodgeman of the Daily Show best describes this book as "a rare, essential glimpse into the Schaal/Blomquist method of ADVANCED DOING-IT." Amusing (and educational!) in print and sure to be absolutely hysterical in person, don't miss this opportunity to see Kristin Schaal address the complex, taboo, and nuanced topic of sexy sex live and in person with us at this Litquake event at Cobb's Comedy Club on October 6th. Everyone's doing it.

We are pleased to be teaming up with PUBLIC Bikes to host author David V. Herlihy’s presentation on his new book, The Lost Cyclist: The Epic Tale of an American Adventurer and His Mysterious Disappearance.

The Lost Cyclist is Herlihy's gripping non-fiction narrative of Frank Lenz who, in the 1880s, endeavored to ride his bicycle twenty thousand miles over three continents as a correspondent for Outing magazine. Two years later, after having survived countless near disasters and hardships, he approached Europe for the final leg. He never made it. His mysterious disappearance in eastern Turkey sparked an international outcry and compelled the magazine to send William Sachtleben, another larger-than-life cyclist, on Lenz’s trail.

This incredible story and Herlihy's presentation are sure to interest bike enthusiasts, casual cyclists, and even the handful of SF residents who don't own a bicycle. This free event PUBLIC’s 123 South Park office is part of the Litquake festival, and it is not one to miss.