I can't even listen to This American Life anymore.  It wasn't always so bland and sappy - it used to sometimes include stories that were strange or potentially controversial.  Now it seems to be pitched squarely at soccer moms, carefully avoiding anything remotely interesting. 
I love Ira Glass, but I just can't…

Yeah, I loved it at that age too.  I read all the Beverly Cleary books, and I thought some of them were pretty weak (the Ramona ones were especially boring to me), but the Mouse series was great.

I was 12 when I read "The Hobbit" and "Lord of Rings" and I was obsessed with them.  One day at the bookstore I saw that JRR Tolkein had a whole shelf of other books available!  Holy Shit!  Why had no one told me?!  So I grabbed "The Silmarillion" and a couple of other ones and hurried home to read them. 
So…

I've only read a couple of Judy Blume books, but they were all depressing as hell.  "Sheila the Great" was the worst - I was only 10 or so when I read it, and I clearly remember wondering what kind of psycho would write something like this for children.

Incidentally, Maron’s stories about his fights with his girlfriend are always a little uncomfortable, aren’t they?

Either of those (Watchmen or Sandman) would be fine choices for trippy and mind-bending.

There's so many great starting points, but not knowing what your tastes are I'd hesitate to recommend any one book….  What kind of genres are you usually into in books and movies? 

Yeah, you're right - a lot of the time he'll ask a question that's seemingly designed just to make him look smart, and then completely ignore the answer, which is really irritating.  But a lot of the guests are just so interesting that they rise above that.  I do really love that the artists pick the songs for the…

Yes, he is kind of annoying - but he's just a university student or something, right?  So I guess I'm inclined to be forgiving, because they always get great guests.  I do feel like Robin is really rude to the guests sometimes though (acting really dismissive or bored, or flat out saying he hasn't read much of their…

Have you read Daytripper yet?  I recommend it!

Yeah, me too - the prices are pretty out of control, especially on weeklies.  They have to rethink that whole business model.

More Steinbeck for you, my friend!

Agreed, I've been introduced to tons of great music thanks to Can-con rules.  The best part is, once you discover the new Canadian indie band, it's only a matter of time before they come to your town to play live, because (Canadian trivia moment) *there are not that many towns*!  And bands that can't get passports…

I studied Shakespeare, Twain, and Steinbeck in highschool English, but maybe the curriculum is different in Canada?  Anyway, despite all of us Canadians studying, discussing, and analyzing those authors, plenty of us (most of us?)are still dumb and love John Grisham.  I'm just nitpicking here - I completely agree with…

Just count yourself lucky that you weren't there for the great "Watching 'I'm Not There' With My Family" debacle of 2007.  It's about Bob Dylan, so of course they wanted to watch it…  Oh god, the comments…  I still haven't stopped facepalming.

Who needs running water when you can order stuff from Amazon! 
But seriously, that's really cool that you were able to get it out there, and cool to hear that the film got you to seek out the book, even in an indirect way.

Just out of curiosity, did you pick up Watchmen when the movie come out?  I remember seeing a bunch of Watchmen displays in bookstores that year and thinking "Cool, I hope people pick those up and get introduced to comics".   So maybe it worked??
Weekly comics aren't my favorite, I prefer a nice thick graphic novel,…

I'd say neither, honestly.  I found the Dave Foley one interesting, but kind of depressing, and the Gallagher one is hilarious (in a super tense and uncomfortable way), but not repressentative of the show.  I agree with Jay S. - scroll through until you find someone you're interested in and start there.  Oh, and while…

I do like that one.  They seem to mostly cover the big Marvel/DC stuff, which I'm not as interested in, but I usually listen anyway because I like their (Scottish?) accents and the way they say "Iron Mahn", "Deerdevil", and "buke" as in "The new Deerdevil buke".  It's adorable.

I wish the average reader would give comics/graphic novels a damn chance already and stop thinking sequential art = spiderman.  It's been, what, like 20 years since Maus came out?  Surely by now graphic novels should be seeing the same kind of sales numbers and legitimacy as other books.  But no, I can't even…