$ch = curl_init();

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, "https://www.google.com/accounts/ClientLogin");
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_FOLLOWLOCATION, true);

    $data = array('accountType' => 'GOOGLE',
    'Email' => 'emailgoeshere@gmail.com',
    'Passwd' => 'passwordhere',
    'source'=>'nameyourapp',
    'service'=>'reader');

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER, 0);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POST, true);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_POSTFIELDS, $data);

    $loginResult = curl_exec($ch);

    // this is the meat:  grabbing the "Auth" value from the token we get back
    $authRaw = strstr($loginResult, "Auth");
    $authToken = substr($authRaw, 5);

    // this builds the action we'd like the API to perform
    $ch = curl_init("http://www.google.com/reader/atom/user/-/state/com.google/reading-list");

    $header[] = 'Authorization: GoogleLogin auth='.$authToken;

    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HTTPHEADER, $header);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_HEADER, false);

    $xml = curl_exec($ch);
    curl_close($ch);