Here you'll find a selection of some of the Green Apple staff's favorite books that are also conveniently available as eBooks. Don't forget to first associate your Kobo account with Green Apple with this link to ensure we get a share of your purchases henceforth!
One of the best insider baseball books I've ever read. Based on interviews with hundreds of players from the last 50 years of baseball, along with great historical anecdotes, The Baseball Codes reveals the unseen game: what offenses cause a pitcher to intentionally hit a batter; what recourse that batter has; what's ok and what's not ok when it comes to stealing signs; how to properly celebrate an accomplishment without earning the ire of the opposing team; what actually constitutes "running up the score"; what is proper decorum for a rookie in the clubhouse. Best of all, the authors are both local, so many of the tales involve the Giants.
-Kevin R.
Don’t let the thinness of this book deceive you. Duras writes with a beautiful sparseness that is unlike any other writer I have ever read. She is able to capture that fragmented feeling of memory without sacrificing the readability of the story. It is a book that still haunts me.
-Emily
My favorite book in 2010. {Editor's note: Jeff's original shelf-talker for this book also includes a frightening drawing of a tiger claw.}
-Jeff
This is Bolaño’s first and, I feel, his most remarkable novel. he was only twenty-seven when he wrote it but it is the beginning of what ultimately becomes Bolaño’s voice. It is an unconventional but brilliant murder mystery. It is a quick read but one of the few novels I read time and time again, always discovering and experiencing new and wonderful nuances.
-Nick
“Suppose I were to begin by saying that I had fallen in love with a color,” writes Maggie Nelson in the opening note of Bluets. What follows is an account of a love, truly, including love’s every aspect: lust, infatuation, frustration, occasional boredom, and constant fascination as Nelson tumbles into this vivid hue and pulls us into its depths along with her. Part memoir, perhaps a poem, part literary history of blue and the psychology of color, Bluets is a mesmerizing book that will color your world and reading anew.
-Molly
A backwoods crucifixion.
-Frank
Do you ever feel like the world is less real than it appears? Or that you move through it inconsequentially, like a ghost? You wake up in your room, everything’s where it was the night before, you listen to passing traffic, make your way to work where you go through the typical motions...(am I projecting?). But underneath it all there’s a sense that something is missing. This is a common enough theme in our post-existential world -- and one that’s made its way into countless novels -- but Tom McCarthy’s take on this malaise is unique enough to provide a shock. Remainder is a great, defining work of fiction.
-Sparks
In my reductivist way, I have always chosen to regard Johnny Rotten (Lydon) as the brains of punk, and Joe Strummer (John Mellor) as the heart of punk, and much of that is down to Strummer’s affective “an ordinary bloke” persona. Salewicz’s encyclopedic biography reveals a complex subject who was anything but an ordinary yob; he was a deeply flawed hero, with a heart as big as the world, a heart which, ironically enough, killed him. If the 10 years which have passed since his death have taught us anything, it’s that we shall not see his like again.
-Spiros
One part Indiana Jones, one part To Live and Let Die, and ALL PARTS AWESOME, The Serpent and the Rainbow is a Harvard ethnobotanist’s riveting true story of a journey deep into the heart of Haitian voudoun culture. From the sultry, hypnotic rhythms of a high-priestess’s dance moves to a spine-tingling meeting at the cemetery gates, Davis’ narrative thrills while providing a penetrating scientific inquiry into the phenomena of real-life zombies. On his quest to unearth the anaesthetic properties of so-called “zombie powder,” Davis digs up far more. One thing’s for sure -- you’ll never look at pufferfish the same way again! P.S. - grab a rum drank and read this one under the lovely pufferfish lamps at nearby Bucksot bar.
-Brittany
This is the most beautiful book I have ever read. It's a classic but I still think it deserves a shelf talker. It feels l ike reading a poem. The language is lush and intoxicating.
-Danielle
This book might have been subtitled “The Time Traveller’s Guide to WWII.” This might be the best of her time travel books, which is a bold statement indeed. Blackout follows three different history students from the future “observing” Second World War London. However, when they become stranded in time, history assumes a reality it hadn’t before. A word of caution -- Blackout is only part one, with All Clear, the second half of the story.
-Martin
Whenever I forget why I like to read (or enjoy anything, really) I pick up this book and remember why I got so obsessed. You don’t know a sentence until you’ve read Amy Hempel’s. Her terse wit and attention to detail will probably change your life. After finishing a story of hers, it feels like the pressure in the room has changed. I could probably write an essay on this book. So seriously, just read this.
-Sara
What if the right direction was one step to the left? What if that step in the left direction hurdled you on a journey through a world not unlike a video game fantasy, with levels filled with obstacles and diversions? Join young Luka on an adventure through the World of Magic, filled with mythical creatures and deceptive illusions in search of the fire that will save his father’s life. Meet up with familiar characters from myths, legends, and fables who guide Luka in the right (and wrong) direction, down the River of Time, through the Sea of Stories, and up the Mountain of Knowledge to steal the Fire of Life!
-Ronnie
Shipmates, don’t let this be the one that got away from ye. Here is a rip-roaring yarn filled with dark humor and haunted by eternal mysteries. Perfect reading for the beach, the crow’s nest, or the bar.
-E.H.
Sigh...my hero! Read Love All the People and he’ll be your hero too!
-Kevin H.