Speaking of books that I have no choice but to buy, The Complete Peanuts also qualifies. This incredibly ambitious series plans to reprint every single Peanuts comic strip ever published, two volumes a year for the next twelve years. (The 1950-1952 edition is being released in April.) This would be an essential purchase even if it weren't for such additional features as a comprehensive index, which, as The Onion notes, contains entries like "Charlie Brown, insults to, re: size & shape of head."

Along with Dr. Seuss, D'Aulaires' Greek Myths, and Idries Shah's World Tales, these collected Peanuts strips are going to be the living heritage that I pass down to my children. And here's the scary part: by the time the last volume of this series comes out, it's not entirely impossible that I'll have a child or two who will be old enough to read the darned things. As Linus himself once said, "That's the sort of thought that gives sober men pause."