 | In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
Buy new: $10.20 / Used from: $0.34 Truman Capote writes like God. Justly celebrated.
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 | Magic for Beginners by Kelly Link
Buy new: $7.53 / Used from: $0.99 Lovely long-ish short stories by a really good new writer. This stuff is good whether you like fantasy or not.
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 | Dubliners (Dover Thrift Editions) by James Joyce
Buy new: $2.00 / Used from: $0.01 James Joyce's first book, this one consisting of delicately-wrought short stories. The characters are vibrant but not in-your-face, and the tone is achingly beautiful.
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 | Testament of Youth (Penguin Classics) by Vera Brittain
Buy new: $11.56 / Used from: $4.94 I like to say this is one of the most emo books I've ever read, but I'm mostly kidding. While very emotionally harrowing, it's also a wonderful autobiography and a compelling look at the feminine side of World War One.
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 | Phineas Poe: Kiss Me/Judas/ Penny Dreadful/Hell's Half Acre by Will Christopher Baer
Buy used from: $43.95 A wonderful collection of weird noir and bad living. Phineas Poe is a strangely endearing, though wildly untrustworthy, narrator, and the other characters are equally interesting. Highly recommended.
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 | Jumping Off The Planet (Starsiders Trilogy) by David Gerrold
Buy used from: $0.01 Fun, fun YA science fiction from the man who brought us "The Trouble With Tribbles." Gerrold's adolescent narrator is charming and snarky and true-to-life in a wonderful way.
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 | Blacksad, Vol. 1 by Juan Diaz Canales
Buy used from: $98.95 I actually read this in French, but I'll tell you this -- it's the best book about walking, talking animals I've found since "Redwall," and that's including "Watership Down." Plus, it has really cool pictures.
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 | The Metamorphosis (Bantam Classics) by Franz Kafka
Buy new: $5.95 / Used from: $0.01 I read this in two days, right around Christmas. Really put me in the holiday spirit, I'll tell you. I still haven't figured it out, but I liked it a lot. It reminded me of the Brothers Quay, and that's good.
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 | Brick
Buy new: $5.49 / Used from: $2.25 Surprise! A little recent viewing, too. One of the best movies I've seen in a long time. Could easily have been gimmicky, but instead was simply awesome. Buy it and make Fox sorry it didn't get general release.
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 | King Rat by China Mieville
Buy new: $11.55 / Used from: $3.99 I'm a China Miéville fan, but I didn't read this until after reading all the Bas-Lag books. "King Rat" is much more Borribles than Gormenghast, but is very good, in its own way.
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 | All Quiet on the Western Front by Erich Maria Remarque
Buy new: $6.99 / Used from: $0.01 A beautiful book. The writing is spare but pure, and the narrator's digressions are lovely and thought-provoking. The 1930 film version is also wonderful.
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 | The First World War by John Keegan
Buy new: $11.53 / Used from: $2.70 Is my obsession showing? Keegan's writing is wonderfully readable, and his explanations of the battles and "behind the scenes" of World War One is clear and interesting. Highly recommended.
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 | The Faerie Queene (Penguin Classics) by Edmund Spenser
Buy new: $13.60 / Used from: $3.98 Actually, I've been working on this since last summer, but I'd put it aside for a while and I'm finally getting back into it. Every fantasy cliché is set up here, and done better than anyone else ever.
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 | The Black Parade by My Chemical Romance
Buy new: $12.99 / Used from: $3.78 Yes, I know it's My Chemical Romance. It's a very good album, and it helps me write cool stuff really fast. Same goes for their previous albums.
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 | Saint Rose Parish by Daryl Scairiot
Buy new: $14.49 / Used from: $4.53 Actually, I've been listening to Daryl's most recent album, "Essays" more than this one lately. Both are excellent.
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 | Una Volta by DeVotchKa
Buy new: $14.99 / Used from: $7.99 The band aptly describes themselves as "sad-bastard eastern European music," and they're right. You probably know them for the soundtrack to "Little Miss Sunshine." Lots of fun.
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 | The Tain by The Decemberists
Buy new: $11.98 / Used from: $5.63 The Decemberists' incredible 20-minute epic supposedly came about because Colin Meloy was reading "Tain Bo Cualghne" and listening to a lot of Black Sabbath. This... definitely shows.
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 | Pandemonia by The Bathers
Buy new: $28.99 / Used from: $6.40 My favorite album by the Bathers, who are probably the best band you've never heard. Sad, pretty but not fey, this is mood music for the smart and melancholy.
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 | The Lady in the Lake by Raymond Chandler
Buy new: $10.08 / Used from: $1.17 Huzzah for Raymond Chandler! This is more melancholy than some of his other works, but every bit as good. Philip Marlowe is one of the most mysterious narrators I've come across outside of Dostoevsky, but he's engaging and witty.
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 | The High Window by Raymond Chandler
Buy new: $10.04 / Used from: $2.00 More Chandler. "I'll try, but I don't think I'll like you very much." "I'm screaming with rage and pain." You have to love a book with that little exchange in it.
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 | Extinction Journals by Jeremy Robert Johnson
Buy new: $9.95 / Used from: $6.79 The cover's a beauty, and the story's a riot. Like a Piero de Cosimo painting smashed on to a page and beat up by... Well, Jeremy Robert Johnson. Fun, fun, fun.
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