Alraune is a 1928 silent science fiction horror film directed by Henrik Galeen and starring Brigitte Helm in which a prostitute is artificially inseminated with the semen of a hanged man. The story is based upon the legend of Alraune and the powers of the mandrake root to impregnate women. In this version the symbiosis caused by the sexual union between the human and the root causes the girl to kill all men who fall in love with her. -- Wikipedia summary

Now this is kind of unexpected. Someone uploaded the entire 1928 silent b/w film adaptation of Hanns Heinz Ewers' Alraune. I'm kind of surprised because while I am used to seeing several MTV channels worth of music videos, clips of animals doing weird things, or Family Guy on YouTube, actual classics of German cinema seemed to be beyond their scope (or a great deal of their audience). And yet...

Link above goes to first section of movie. It's very grainy, but still watchable.

Idea originating from one of my favorite sites, Smart Bitches, Trashy Books.

"A friend of mine came up with a rather nifty question recently: compile a short list of books specifically meant to help somebody understand you. These are not (necessarily) non-fiction books that catalogue your particular disorders or quirks, but books that especially resonate with you, that express a facet of you in book form."

Elizabeth Hand - Waking The Moon: If I was only allowed to ever keep one book in my life, this would be it. I remember picking it up at a used book store shortly before a plane flight back in the mid-90s because I liked the cover. I read it cover to cover during that flight and realized this was my book and nothing else would ever come close to it. In fact, I was right. The timing was perfect on it and there has never been as breathtaking a reading experience as that day.

Arturo Perez-Reverte - The Club Dumas: From the day I bought this, I have always wanted to be Dean Corso. Alas, I am not. I also retain a special connection to this book because of how I obtained it. I was looking for fiction about rare books at the library and this was the only book that popped up for my search string. I decided to see if I could buy it, since the current copy was checked out. I went to B&N and looked in the PB section, but it was a trade pb and way too expensive for what I wanted to pay (like $10-12). Saddened, I waited with my parents in line while they decided to buy some books. I got bored and wandered over to the bargain book section. And lo, sitting there, a single hardcover copy of "The Club Dumas" for $6. Fate at its finest.

Andrew Lang - Any of his "Fairy Books": I've always adored fairy tales, and Lang's twelve volumed set of color themed collections defined my childhood. I used to check them out from the library over and over again and rack up overdue fines until I think the librarians probably thought I should just buy them.

Cornell Woolrich - The Night Has A Thousand Eyes: There's a lot of Woolrich I love, but I think this book best portrays what I look for in his work. The fatalistic idea that nothing can be changed, combined with the hardboiled dialogue and characters, is what drew me to film noir. Shadowy streets, mysterious figures, and the overall sense that no, the universe doesn't actually care about you.

H.P. Lovecraft - Supernatural Horror in Literature: Besides the obvious facts that it's Lovecraft and a survey of horror, it has the most resonant passages for me. "The one test of the really weird is simply this -- whether of not there be excited in the reader a profound sense of dread, and of contact with unknown spheres and powers; a subtle attitude of awed listening, as if for the beating of black wings or the scratching of outside shapes and entities on the known universe's utmost rim."

Douglas Adams - The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series: "There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened."

Edward Gorey - Amphigorey/Charles Addams - The World of Charles Addams: The artwork fairly well defined my life in high school as well as my brief flirtation with being a goth.

Michael J. Wells - The Psychotronic Video Guide
E.L. Konigsburg - From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Neil Gaiman - "Murder Mysteries"