By title

By author

Tony DiTerlizzi

• Peter Pan and Wendy

• J.M. Barrie's classic has surly pirates, bloodthirsty native Americans, a hungry crocodile, feisty faeries and flying kids with weapons . . . what more could you ask for?

• Watership Down

• Richard Adams takes you on an incredible quest from a home colony that’s completely eradicated to Shangri la. One the way, there are monsters, villains, allies, oh, and a fascist leader trying to seize the hero's new home . . . and its all told with rabbits. You read that right — rabbits.

• The Mouse and the Motorcycle

• Mouse buddy + toy motorcycle = Awesome!

• The Lorax

• In my mind, this one of Dr. Seuss’s undisputed classics. Sadly, we need the Lorax now more than ever.

• Lafcadio: The Lion That Shot Back

• One of Shel Silverstein's lesser known titles, but one of my all-time favorites. Actually, I learned about this one when my younger brother read it for school and had me help with his book report. It is one of those stories that you will always remember.

Patrick Jones

• Becoming the Natural, My Life In and Out of the Cage

• There are many UFC biographies out, so it's who you like. I'm an old guy; I like the old guy.

• Headlock

• A novel about a teen breaking into wrestling while wrestling with some problems of his own. The author is a Ric Flair fan (whooo!).

• Lion’s Tale, Around the World in Spandex

• There's a lot of wrestling biographies out there, but Y2J's is probably best of the newer ones probably because he takes himself the least serious of all the squared circle scribes.

• Mondo Lucha A Go-Go, The Bizarre and Honorable World of Wild Mexican Wrestling

• Filled with photos of these masked Mexican wrestlers, this is a must to understand the history and scope of pro wrestling.

• Octagon

• Nothing but photos of UFC fighters through all stages of their careers. From the founders like Ken Shamrock to the modern kings of eight-sided cage, a wonderful way to browse the history of UFC.

• Title Shot, Into the Shark Tank of Mixed Martial Arts

• The book follows the author's journey to become a MMA fighter. He thought training for the Army was hard work. Welcome to the cage.

• Warrior Angel

• The 4th novel of a series that started in the 1960s still punches hard with hard punches and harder choices.

• Whole Sky Full of Stars

• A quick little read about a young man trying to earn money, and respect, by winning a boxing tournament.

• Why I Fight, A Novel

• The gritty covers lets you know the story inside is a tough one about a young man searching for himself, one fight at a time.

• WWE Encyclopedia

• You get photos, lists, more photos, and more lists. As JR would say, "Business is about to pick up."

Patrick Jones

• Coyote Steals the Blanket, A Ute Tale

• A trickster tale about a coyote, a blanket, and a rock. Hot times in the desert.

• Dangerous Girls

• Or anything by Stine. The man's a genius. Don't believe me: this is about twin teen girls vampires one hot summer. Do the math.

• Hidden Talents

• This has it all: humor, adventure, smart mouth teen boys, stupid rules to rebel against, and fire.

• Scholastic Book Of Lists

• When you don’t have time for chapters or even paragraphs, choose bullets. Bullet points that is.

• Scary Stories 3

• Nothing wrong with the first two volumes, but this is "just delicious!" Don't read this during lunch or before or after.

• Strong to the Hoop

• A 10-year-old gets a chance to play with the big boys. Read this and you'll feel the sweat fly off the pages.

• The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, The Definitive History of the Most Important Artists and Their Music

• By the Rolling Stone editors. An earlier edition of this book was my Bible at age 17. Everything you need to know.

Daniel Handler

• The Bears’ Famous Invasion of Sicily

• This book contains fierce battles, a magic wand, illegal gambling, a sea serpent, many ghosts and a werewolf, although the werewolf in the book doesn't really appear in the book. This has been my favorite book since I was a tiny brat, and now that I am larger I try to make everyone read it.

• The Headless Cupid

• This is another lifelong favorite of mine, about a poltergeist, which is either an invisible ghost throwing things around or somebody pretending to be an invisible ghost throwing things around.

• Danny, the Champion of the World

• Everybody knows Roald Dahl, but you might not know this book, which is not only a great suspense story but teaches you several methods of hunting pheasant illegally, which your parents have probably not taught you. Another thing you might not know about Roald Dahl is that if you go online you can take a virtual tour of the disgusting hut in which he wrote his books.

• How I Live Now

• This starts out as a pleasant summer story about spending time with one’s cousins and then suddenly gets pretty scary.

• Running Wild

• This book is even scarier. It might be too scary for you. It is about some nasty, nasty children. I don't really like to think about this book, which is probably why I've read it three times.

• Halloween Party

• OK, this book isn't nearly as scary. It's just about a young girl who gets murdered while bobbing for apples. Agatha Christie is fun to read because there's always a mystery, and often there's a list of characters in the front in case you start getting confused.

Sam Potts

• Lou Gehrig, Boy of the Sandlots
• Guernsey Van Riper Jr.

• I think this is the first book I ever picked out on my own and read by myself. I'm pretty sure it is. I can tell you this for sure: Lou Gehrig always has been and always will be my favorite baseball player. And I'm from Boston, so that's saying something about the influence of this book.

• What Do People Do All Day?
• Richard Scarry

• Before there was the Internet, there was What Do People Do All Day? to describe the whole world and everything in it. Still hours of fun to explore every page.

• Stuart Little
• E.B. White

• He wears a sweater and sails a boat and drives a car and gets dumped on a garbage barge. Oh, and he's a mouse.

• Paddle To The Sea
• Holling C. Holling

• An adventure story starring a carved wooden boat that travels all the way across Canda. A carved wooden boat? you say. That's right: a carved wooden boat! I wished I could be that boat.

• The Great Brain, Great Brain Series
• John D. Fitzgerald

• This book and the other Great Brain books that followed are a handy how-to guide in the arts of scheming, swindling, cheating, and being a younger brother.

• Tintin Adventures (Series)
• Herge

• We just called them "Tintins." I'd say, "Do you have any new Tintins?" and my friend Jamie would say, "I just finished The Black Island. You can borrow it but you have to give it back." YOu always had to give them ack because these books are precious.

• Dubliners
• James Joyce

• Yeah it's James Joyce, but so what? He ain't so tough. The beauty of these stories is in their simplicity. You'll be able to taste the peas with vinegar and pepper in "Two Gallants." Read this when your friends are reading Catcher in the Rye. (And read that one, too.)

• Ficciones
• Jorge Luis Borges

• A character named Borges comes across an encyclopedia of a fictional land. Pierre Menard rewrites bits of Don Quixote verbatim, by coincidence. Funes remembers everything that happened, ever. Amazing. Worth re-reading about every five years or so.

• A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again, Essays and Arguments
• David Foster Wallace

• If you get far enough to read about the toilets in the title essay, you'll probably go on to read every word Wallace ever wrote. This book also contains the most terrifying description of baton-twirling you could ever read.

• Anatomy of a Typeface
• Anthony Lawson

• For the serious typographer as well as the font enthusiast: histories of all the classic typefaces from the days when fonts weighed about 50 pounds (because they were made out of lead). Simply indispensable.