Stylish and dangerous, cantankerous and elegiac. "Ahead of its time" is a phrase too often used, but seems to have found its match with Crash.

The Believer is the best collection of book reviews, interviews, personal essays, and pointless diversions published on a monthly basis on the planet. Seriously.

Julian Schnabel's repentance for the sloppy and misguided Basquiat. Javier Bardem gives a performance most actors dream of.

Grant Morrison is the shavenheaded harbinger of the future. Throughout his career, his comics have been alarmingly inventive, unique, and relevant, and this is where he started. buybuybuyreadreadread.

Laugh if you must. This is some of the most inventive music of the last half-century, and culture at large are fools not to recognize it. A good primer to Guaraldi's skewed musical perspective.

Here Gibson focuses on the present rather than the future, finding just as much to write about, if not more. Observant and prescient, a novel worthy of great attention.

You can never go wrong with any Alec collection, but with "Graffiti Kitchen" contained herein, this is his absolute best. Eddie Campbell is in search of beauty, and in this book, he finds it.

My own induction into the world of Lethem. Miasmically alluring; ugly but repentant.

My apologies to Palahniuk. It's been said he writes the same novel over and over again, which may be true. But it's a great novel, isn't it?

The mechanism for Martin's transformation from Wild and Crazy Guy to intelligensia who never takes himself seriously. Insouciant humor pockmarked with moments of striking beauty.

Not even their best album, but possibly their most important. After you've done the experiment, get one of your nerd friends to mix them all on a single cd.

A true opus, creator of its own zeitgeist. A book that lives and breathes, gives and takes.

Yeah, so I ran out of things to suggest. Just think of the ironic value: you can say "I got my vibrator on Amazon." Friends and family will be amazed.