Music and Literature for $300, Alex

Since I'm sure all of you are making a mad dash for the new Harry Potter book, I recommend you go ahead and put in an order for Nick Hornby's (yo, he wrote High Fidelity: Jack Black!) newest book, the aptly named Songbook, which features essays on songs that Hornby feels passionately about, and is accompanied by an 11-song CD (it includes not all the songs mentioned in the books due to licensing difficulties). Some songs are Nelly Furtado's "I'm Like a Bird," and testimony about Rufus Wainwright's coy reinterpretation of his father Loudon's "One Man Guy." Especially poignant, according to amazon.com, is Hornby's reaction to "A Minor Incident," a Badly Drawn Boy song written for the soundtrack of the film version of Hornby's book About a Boy. Proceeds from the book benefit TreeHouse, a U.K. charity for children with autism, and 826 Valencia, the nonprofit Bay Area learning center. But you have to order it, so mush!