Events

We're very excited to bring you a reading with Ernest Cline, author of Ready Player One, one of our previous Books of the Month and a now longtime bestseller on the Green Apple shelves. Nothing comes closer to summing up this novel than the pitch Green Appler Ashley wrote for the book last fall, so here it goes:

This debut novel from the man who brought us the 2008 film Fanboys delivers the geekdom, and how. To get an idea of what this unique take on a quest novel is like, take one part Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, one part 9th level wizard, douse it all heavily with MTV (when MTV actually showed videos), thoroughly mix in every John Hughes movie that features at least three actors from the Brat Pack, add a few dashes of the truck sequence from Raiders of the Lost Ark, and sprinkle with Monty Python, all while listening to your totally 80s mix-tape compilations and then you will begin to comprehend the treasure that is this book.

Intrigued? Confused? Super pumped to read it again? Come check out Ernest Cline's reading in the Granny Smith Room on June 22nd at 7 PM enjoy the fun that is Ready Player One live and in person, just in time for its release in paperback. See you there.

(Update: Cline just called to ask us where to park his Delorean. He's serious.)

Don't miss G. Willow Wilson, who will be appearing in the Granny Smith Room to read from her new book, Alif the Unseen, a fantastic thriller about a computer hacker's elaborate attempt to disappear into anonymity during the Arab Spring. Wilson's debut novel (a departure from he previous work as a graphic novelist) is being met by rave reviews both in the New York Times and among our own staff. Green Appler Martin says: "There are some books that come to you out of left field, that are so unlike anything you've read, that just leave you slack jawed in admiration. Alif the Unseen is an incredible fiction debut from an author I know we'll be enjoying for decades to come, and one of the best books written about the Arab Spring." So pick up a copy today, and come by on Tuesday, July 10th at 7PM to meet the author and get it signed. See you there.

Dave Eggers has long been a favorite of Green Apple's owners, staff, and customers.  Who else has the range to help create MIGHT magazine, the Believer, and Lucky Peach, while writing unique novels like Zeitoun and his latest, A Hologram for the King.  All while creating a non-profit with 8 locations that nurtures young writers. Oh, and the Voice of Witness series.  And ScholarMatch.  And so on. 

We're pleased as punch to offer you a chance to meet Mr. Eggers, say hello, and get his signature on the new novel (which, we assume, you'll buy here, at the store that brings you such wonderful opportunities). 

Note the time (noon)!

And if you can't make it, call the store (415-387-2272).  You can pre-purchase the book, and we'll have it inscribed for you to pick up or be shipped to you after the event.  

Here's more about A Hologram for the King:

In a rising Saudi Arabian city, far from weary, recession-scarred America, a struggling businessman pursues a last-ditch attempt to stave off foreclosure, pay his daughter’s college tuition, and finally do something great. In A Hologram for the King, Dave Eggers takes us around the world to show how one man fights to hold himself and his splintering family together in the face of the global economy’s gale-force winds. This taut, richly layered, and elegiac novel is a powerful evocation of our contemporary moment — and a moving story of how we got here.

If you've got kiddos home for the summer, you want all the activities on the calendar you can get, so here's one: Green Apple will be presenting a special story time reading at the Toy Boat Desert Cafe on Tuesday, 7/24 at 3PM. Come get an ice cream, hear a story (read by our very own excellent reader-aloud, Ashley), and help celebrate Toy Boat's 30th anniversary!(Then, maybe, mosey down the street to Green Apple while the kids are contentedly full of ice cream.)

We're pleased to be hosting Yuvi Zalkow for an afternoon reading and signing in celebration of his new novel, A Brilliant Novel in the Works.

Heartbreaking and hilarious, A Brilliant Novel in the Works is an utterly original debut, praised by Cheryl Strayed (author of Wild) as “the secret love child of the smartest person you’ve ever met and the weirdo who lives down the block.” It's the story of a (slightly?) fictionalized Yuvi, a writer whose novel and personal life are simultaneously unraveling at the seams. His novel and his life blend together as he struggles to pull out of the mess, traveling from his suburban Jewish home in Atlanta to the North Carolina mountains of his father's childhood, to several hospital waiting rooms, to the living room of a grieving Palestinian man, and even to Uranus (and back, of course).

Zalkow received his MFA from Antioch University and his stories have been published in Glimmer Train, Narrative Magazine, The Los Angeles Review, Carve Magazine, and others. He is the creator of the "I'm a Failed Writer" online video series and, as he candidly states, he has been rejected more than 600 times by reputable and disreputable journals. He'll be warmly received here at Green Apple at 4PM on Saturday, August 18th -- don't miss it!