So the new Holiday Guide presents a special new feature! Best Of. That’s right. I got some folks together and asked them to contribute a list of their top ten movies and top ten books. Along with an intro and some pimping of their stuff when I can, we’ll be doing one a day when I have one. I had nothing to do with these lists except soliciting them. The descriptions are the authors’ as are the picks.

Today I give you the choices of Ron Malfi. He’s a great author with more good books coming out than should be allowed. Which means we get to rea dthem, so we’re all lucky. In the meantime – here are Malfi’s picks and explanations.

BOOKS
1. The Bleeding Season by Greg F. Gifune (or, really, anything by Gifune) – It seems any writer worth his or her salt eventually confronts their own mortality, inevitably rearing its head in the form of a coming-of-age novel. Here’s Gifune’s.
2. The Comfort of Strangers by Ian McEwan – If Ernest Hemingway wrote thrillers. I am seriously jealous of this novel.
3. The Sun Also Rises by Ernest Hemingway – And speaking of Hemingway…hands down, the greatest American novel (that ironically takes place in Europe) ever written.
4. Girl Imagined by Chance by Lance Olsen – Creepiness imagined by Lance.
5. In the Skin of a Lion by Michael Ondaatje – You cannot beat M.O.’s poetic prose.
6. Rose of Heaven by Michael Hemmingson – The mook’s not just a porn-hound, kids.
7. The Snowman’s Children by Glen Hirshberg – Puts all those sad little Leisure titles to shame.
8. The Throat by Peter Straub – My favorite Straub novel. Might be yours, too.
9. East of Eden by John Steinbeck – This book is his box, and he’s put everything in it.
10. V. by Thomas Pynchon – While his latest, “Against the Day,” reads like the extended director’s cut of tedium, his first novel is quite enjoyable and you won’t need Mr. Webster to help you understand it (the dictionary guy, not the black midget).

MOVIES
1. The Big Lebowski written and directed by the Coen Brothers – Quite possibly the funniest movie ever made. And quite certainly the funniest movie Jeff Bridges ever made.
2. The Descent directed by Neil Marshall – If you like your horror claustrophobic.
3. Eyes Wide Shut directed by Stanley Kubrick – His last film for some reason resonates on a horrific level, depicting the degradation of the American pseudo-family.
4. The Silence of the Lambs directed by Jonathan Demme – A rare example of the film possibly better than the novel.
5. Contact directed by Robert Zemeckis – Same reasoning for “The Silence of the Lambs”…and it makes a nice Jodie Foster boxed set!
6. Summer Lovers directed by Randal Kleiser – One of those peculiar little films I happened to watch years ago, most accidentally, and still resonates with me, mostly in those early mornings when the sun hasn’t fully risen.
7. Fight Club directed by David Fincher – Are you sensing a trend? Part III of the Better than the Book Film Festival.
8. The Exorcist directed by William Friedkin – Okay, maybe not better than the novel, but certainly a worthwhile film and moody as hell.
9. Raiders of the Lost Ark directed by Steven Spielberg – In recognition of the fourth installment to this franchise, “Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skulls,” due out Memorial Day 2008, this film stands out so far as the best in an altogether outstanding trilogy. (Also, you know a director is important when his funky last name is recognized by Microsoft World, particularly when words like “Malfi” are not.)
10. Back to the Future directed by Robert Zemeckis – Seriously, what jerk-bar doesn’t like this movie?

Now, Malfi also has a few books of his own out. Including: The Nature of Monsters, The Fall of Never and the jaw-droppingly good Via Dolorosa.