"Full disclosure: Amy is a friend, and I have tasted her cupcakes. They’re really, really good. (And that is not a euphemism.) I Like You is a spin on those 1960s cookbooks about how to make a nice home and how to entertain. I picked it because I love the character Amy plays: a hostess from the ’60s, in cheap hosiery, wigs, and crazy costumes. But it’s also got recipes for a delicious meatloaf and advice on how to deal with drunk guests. My favorite tip is that when you’re having a party, you should fill your medicine cabinet with marbles—so that when people are snooping, they get caught. I know that Amy really does like to entertain that way. Sometimes she’ll charge people 25 cents to take a picture with a stuffed rabbit. The book is hilarious, beautifully designed, and captures Amy in so many ways"

"As a child, I wanted to grow up to be a professional cartoonist, and when I was about twelve or thirteen my father (right around the time he showed me The Rocky Horror Picture Show) handed me a Washington Post article about Robert Crumb and said, “Here, you might be interested in this.” And boy, was he right! Like finding out that the Cramps and Meet the Feebles existed, this was revelatory. I didn’t know you were allowed to make art like this. (And of course, in Crumb’s case, sometimes you’re not.) Zwigoff’s portrait-of-the-artist-as-nihilistic-misanthrope is one of the all-time great docs about creativity and the toll it can take (see Burden of Dreams for another one!), and on top of that, it’s caustically funny and soul-crushingly humane. Where have you gone, Terry Zwigoff? Our nation turns its lonely eyes to you."