My friend Jesse (Also known as the talented rapper/producer/nice guy N.E.M.C) gave me this book for my birthday a couple years ago. Murakami explores love and suicide in a way that is neither overly sentimental or too sad.

Bathroom book for hip hop kids. Find out how much Isaac Hayes gets paid per sample, find out which songs Slick Rick wishes he made or simply find a page and enjoy.

Candide plus amazing cover artwork by Chris Ware!!! Fresh like baby breath!!! If this doesn't get you to want to read Voltaire, I don't know what will.

Using the visual writing format of Breakfast of Champions, Carlton Mellick III tells a clever story of where punk kids go to when they die. He also explains that even in the afterlife corporations can ruin everything. I mean, any book where the protagonist gets kicked out of heaven for throwing a dildo at G-D is worth taking a look at.

Brian K. Vaughan is in my very not so humble opinion, the best comic writer still actively writing (Alan Moore and Gaiman are great, amazing even but not really making a lot ot comics). The plot of this: Take a bunch of kids, let them find out their parents are evil (and not redeemable evil either), give some of them powers and believable voices.

Endtroducing is basically the record that got me wanting to make beats. This is a nerdy in depth look at the making of it.

Yeah.

Mr. Iceberg Slim ridiculously amazing name aside, wrote great stories of tragic characters. His enemies called him trick baby, his friends called him White Folks. A child of mixed heritage grows up to be a hustler to be reckoned with.

Not a book but the Greatest album of all time. Word

Pretty sure Chuck Pahlnakookadoodle read a lot of this dude. Amazing stuff.

Egotism made me check out this book (a book about a musician named Scott), quality storytelling and video game references made me keep on checking it out.