I'm a sucker for spy thrillers, and have read virtually every novel with the words "KGB" and "CIA" ever published. But this is the gold standard: I suspect that if it didn't have the word "spy" in the title (and wasn't labeled as a genre novel) it would be considered one of the ten greatest English language works of fiction of the 20th century. I re-read it every few years, just to remind myself of what a joy great writing is.

I don't particularly like country music. But Emmylou Harris is something special, and this album is even more special: it was produced by that Canadian genius Daniel Lanois (and as a Canadian, I must say that I love linking the words "genius" and "Canadian") and for some reason the combination of her voice and his sound result in an unforgettable record. Warning: its very melancholy. I wouldn't listen to this record while under the influence of alcohol, while operating heavy machinery or if you've just be dumped by your longtime girl/boy friend.

Steven Johnson (one of my favorite writers) argued in one of his recent books that popular culture was getting harder?that is, more complex and more challenging?and that the plot of, say, the television show "24" had infinitely more elements and moving parts than the plot of the biggest television dramas of the 1970's?say, "Dallas". Johnson's point was that this was a good thing: it was why culture is smarter today than it was in the past, and why television shows have a much longer shelf life today than they used to. Syriana is a wonderful example of the the "smartening-up" of pop culture. It's inconceivable it could have been made twenty years ago, and its many interlocking layers and stories make it extraordinarily engrossing and rewarding (so long as you pay attention!). I thought about this movie for a solid two weeks afterwards.

One sentence: English cockney does rap. How genius is that?

Wilson is one of the great living social pscyhologists, and this is his beautiful and elegant treatise on the inherent mysteriousness of the human mind. It's not an academic work. But it translates the best of what social psychologists have learned into a language the rest of us understand. Few books I've ever read have ever changed the way I think about myself, as much as this one did. Bonus fact: Wilson's uncle was Sloan Wilson, author of "The Man in the Grey Flannel Suit." (Which is also worth reading, by the way.)