 | Six Feet Under - The Complete Series Gift Set
Buy new: $212.99 / Used from: $149.79 (The Best Show. Ever.)
"You want to know a secret? I spent my whole life being scared: of not being ready, of not being right, of not being who I should be. And where did it get me?"
-Nate Fisher
"I wish that just once people wouldn't act like the clichés that they are."
-Claire Fisher
The future is just a f@cking concept that we use to avoid living today.
-Brenda Chenoweth
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 | Franny and Zooey by J.D. Salinger
Buy new: $6.99 / Used from: $0.01 We're carrying the Kingdom of Heaven around with us, inside, where we're all too Goddamn stupid and sentimental and unimaginative to look.
-Salinger
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 | A Summer of Faulkner: As I Lay Dying/The Sound and the Fury/Light in August (Oprah's Book Club) by William Faulkner
Buy new: $19.77 / Used from: $8.79 Welcome to Yoknapatawpha County. Faulkner is the greatest American writer, and after reading any of his novels you'll know why. Forget that these books are classics and high art--Faulkner breathes life into a story like no one else can. Characters like Caddie Compson, Addie Bundren, and Rev, Hightower are honestly written, they'll crawl from the page and live your head for the rest of your days.
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 | Neon Bible by Arcade Fire
Buy new: $16.99 / Used from: $8.08 The best rock band since Radiohead. This album is a termite, slowly eating you alive by lulling you into waves of sound.
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 | Delights & Shadows by Ted Kooser
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $4.60 Kooser deftly evokes beauty and meaning from the unspoken and even mundane without sentimentality.
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 | A Storm of Swords (A Song of Ice and Fire, Book 3) by George R.R. Martin
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $4.16 Snobbery toward modern fantasy kept me from discovering this masterpiece of storytelling years ago. All of the books in this series are great, but this one still haunts me. It takes a master to turn an incestuous, arrogant, attempted child-murderer into my favorite character. Long Live the Lannisters!
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 | Deadwood - The Complete First Two Seasons
Buy new: $119.98 / Used from: $100.00 David Milch's genius defines this masterpiece. Excellent characters, writing, and production, but words are the real star of the show, which is most impressive considering the partially-improvised nature of the show. C@cksucker never sounded so beautiful.
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 | Blankets by Craig Thompson
Buy new: $19.77 / Used from: $12.25 Not for the freshly wounded.
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 | Little, Big by John Crowley
Buy new: $11.53 / Used from: $6.75 While staring off into space, have you ever noticed patterns or faces in your periphery? There is another world just on the edges of ours, and the mysterious Edgewood holds the doors.
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 | Buffy The Vampire Slayer - Collector's Set (40 discs)
Buy new: $186.99 / Used from: $140.00 Not just for chicks. Cooler, smarter, and funnier than I thought possible. All the characters are great, but Spike steals the show.
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 | Atlas Shrugged (Centennial Ed. HC) by Ayn Rand
Buy new: $26.37 / Used from: $21.13 Rand's philosophical manifesto is wrapped in the guise of an capitalist romance. This epic is worth reading, whether you subscribe to Rand's ideology or not. The prose is gorgeously crafted. Despite the novels internal parameters, the relationships between Dagny and her suitors are somewhat unbelievable. But Rand's protagonists are intimidatingly smart and passionate, if not entirely realistic.
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 | Battlestar Galactica - Season One
Buy new: $45.99 / Used from: $33.49 I HATE Star Trek, Star Wars, StarGate, and the original Galactica. If this show weren't so original, addictive, and mysterious, I'd still watch it for #6 (Tricia Helfer).
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 | Preacher Vol. 9: Alamo by Garth Ennis
Buy new: $12.23 / Used from: $9.40 The ground-breaking comic comes to an hugely satisfying end, but not before tearing your heart out a couple more times. Brave, dark, controversial, and one heaven/hell of a ride.
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 | Watchmen by Alan Moore
Buy new: $10.99 / Used from: $10.39 Visionary, horrific, complex, poetic...
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 | American Beauty (Widescreen Edition)
Buy new: $8.99 / Used from: $3.22 A Perfect Movie.
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 | Carnivale - The Complete Second Season
Buy new: $19.99 / Used from: $18.75 Probably the most unique show ever on television. The first season was a (rewarding) slow burner, but the second season starts off running and barely gives you time to catch your breath. Forget the Twin Peaks comparisons; Carnivale is better acted, produced, and conceived.
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 | Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
Buy new: $7.99 / Used from: $0.46 Like falling down a rabbit hole, except wittier, more satisfying, and creepier.
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 | The Shield - Seasons 1-4
Smart, original, intense, and totally badazz! You're probably not worthy.
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 | SEASON 5
Buy used from: $21.58 The most focused season arc I've seen on television. Brutal, amazing, and heartbreaking non-stop suspence.
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 | Nabokov: Novels 1955-1962: Lolita / Pnin / Pale Fire (Library of America) by Vladimir Nabokov
Buy new: $23.10 / Used from: $17.00 A stylistic master; Nobokov doesn't tell a story, he spins a web. The delicious, sharp prose in all three stories is something to behold (and enjoy).
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 | Sam Peckinpah's Legendary Westerns Collection (The Wild Bunch / Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid / Ride the High Country / The Ballad of Cable Hogue)
Buy new: $31.49 / Used from: $42.59 Four of Peckinpah's best films. Beautifully shot and conceived, Peckinpah's films breathed fresh, original life into the western.
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