Hell Yeah! Worthy
as curated by the Atticus Books staff
Hell Yeah! Worthy is a monthly feature where our staff distills the plethora of scat on the Internet into a succinct list of the best you haven’t seen, the best you ignored, and the best you should visit again.

J.R.R. Tolkien
Art of the Hobbit: Never-Before-Seen Drawings of J.R.R. Tolkien by Maria Popova
via Brain Pickings
I’m awestruck by people whose artistic talents delight and amaze in cross-disciplinary fashion. Tolkien’s genius and wizardry did not stop with narrative; his words merely served as a conduit to his magnificent artwork. I recall The Hobbit being the first book I owned as a child, perhaps in the first grade. I can see my name written inside the front cover of the worn pocket paperback and I can remember feeling utterly captivated by the magic within those pages. (Dan)

The winner of the 2011 National Book Award for Fiction
Who Should Judge the National Book Awards? by Victor LaValle
via Salon
Every year there’s a hubbub around literary awards as too orientated toward the literary community and not concerned with the broader reading public. Unfortunately for this year’s National Book Awards, not only was there a gaffe in the finalist announcement for young adult literature, the judges failed to nominate any appropriately “big name” authors (prompting The Washington Post book reviewer Ron Charles to opine on Twitter that many of the year’s beloved novels weren’t included.) In his essay, LaValle argues that the awards community should include dedicated, professional booksellers among their judges because they “have more contact with the general reading public than most writers, editors, or critics ever will.” Booksellers know that the reading public “is a complex and surprising organism”– the rampant success of Dan Brown aside. (Lacey)

Blue Velvet, directed by David Lynch
David Lynch Makes a Mix Tape
via Pitchfork
If you aren’t entranced by David Lynch‘s surrealist subversions of the classic American dream—from small town diners serving up mouth-watering cherry pie to the wanton hopes of fame—then you have an undiagnosable illness. Regardless of how many times you’ve watched Blue Velvet, Lynch (who recently released an album himself) creates a blues, indie, and classic rock-infused playlist that merits repeated listens. (Lacey)