Summer is on its way (let's ignore this dreary spring)—and for many of us that means climbing into a car and driving for a long, long time to reach wherever our vacation is taking us to (the beach! college reunions! Chicago!). And what better distraction from an endless straight shot of highway than an audiobook? But, as anyone who has ever been stuck in a car for 13 hours with only a CD read in deadly monotone for company, not all audiobooks are created equal. To find out the best ones, we asked an assortment of folks for their favorites. Some had specific recommendations (as well as titles to stay [...]

Now that we've finally cleared out all of those "best of" and "year end" music lists of 2011—and good riddance!—here's something different: most played songs. The songs that show up on your most played list aren't necessarily the songs that defined the year for you. They can be timeless—the comfort songs you return to over and over again. Or they can reflect periods of brief, intense obsession, such as, in my case, with "My Heart is a Drummer” by Allo Darlin’, which I first listened to on a recommendation from a friend, and proceeded to play 50 times in a span of three days.

Here then, from 43 music [...]

First book crushes: The feelings are so strong and obsessive. The books seem smart, sophisticated, cool; the characters in them say and do such great things, they seem like guides sent to teach you how to be that way too. But then the crush goes, and the object of one's former affection becomes an embarrassment—or at least the memory of you quoting them so seriously does. To explore this phenomenon, we asked an assortment of literary-inclined people to revisit the books they loved back in the day, the ones that make them absolutely cringe today.

Sam Anderson, New York Times Magazine

Oh man, I suspect you're going to [...]

It's been well documented that TV is a time-suck. One reason: the repeat showings of movies, some of which, even if you've already seen them a hundred times (and you might even own on DVD), you will stick with for the duration, through commercials, bad cable edits and all. (Speaking of cable edits, was I the only one who didn’t know about that pubic hair on the pizza scene in She’s All That?!?) We asked an assortment of folks which movies never fail to suck them in.

Kurt Andersen

Pretty much the only time I mindlessly flip TV channels these days is when I'm traveling alone and staying [...]