Best of 2008 Picks -- Richard Dansky

The best book I read this year was The Man On the Ceiling, by Melanie and Steve Rasnic Tem. It's heartbreaking, it's enlightening, it's utterly indescribable except to say that it is about where stories come from in a way that strips all the glib answers to that question bare, and leaves them ashamed and inconsequential.

The best movie? Let the Right One In, a Swedish vampire film that's tender and terrifying in equal measure, and can be read as either the sweetest of love stories or the most horrifying of manipulations. Either way, it's never less than enthralling, and the visuals – especially the swimming pool sequence and the hospital visit – are stunning and unearthly.

As for music, I'll have to go with a shot of Southern fried goodness: the Drive-By Truckers' Brighter Than Creation's Dark. I wrote big chunks of Firefly Rain to the DBTs, and have been a big fan ever since. Brighter Than Creation's Dark is a little more introspective and warm than their previous outings, but no less potent for that. The hell with Kid Rock recycling Skynyrd and Zevon; this is the real stuff.