This existentialist debut novel is so French. It tracks the tortured sex life of a nameless woman who works doing announcements for the Métro and spends her spare time contemplating, in vivid detail, her amorous failures, plus getting mixed up with characters like a transvestite performer and a North African drug dealer. Céline Curiol’s prose is unsentimental but moving. On her protagonist: “There had only been two men in her life. And she had never understood what they wanted from her.”

We first introduced you to Rosa, a goth chick in L.A. who dreams about the romantic, ruffle-shirt-clad vampire lifestyle, in Vulture's exclusive excerpt last month. She hasn't a clue that Dave Marshall — the sweet, nondescript convenience-store clerk — is actually a vampire whose un-life is not so glamorous. Rent must be paid, the annoying boss must be tolerated, and cute girls like Rosa seem to always go after rich jerks rather than him. Will Dave's dead-end job go on for eternity?

It’s tricyclers versus triceratops in Sesame Street’s latest direct-to-DVD title. Elmo hosts this sharp, 40-minute show that introduces kids to scaly legends — explaining where they lived, what they ate — and even transforms Elmo, Telly, and Abby into extinct tap dancers for the almost too catchy song-and-dance number called “Doing the Dinosaur.” Twice as expansive as the slightly spotty Elmo’s World: Opposites and with a tighter script than the Elmo’s World: Pets, it's a must-see ... if you’re under 4.

In the two days since NIN delivered unto us yet another album — this one free to download, and with singing! — we’ve reconnected with Trent Reznor, dirty pop-song writer. The ambient murmurs here are just downtime from the driving keyboard, heavy beats, and of course Reznor’s weirdly sultry vocals — all the awesomeness, in other words. When our man pants “once I start, I can not stop myself,” we can only assume it’s a reference to his new musical binge.

These hip-hop vets, the MC Buckshot and the producer 9th Wonder, have made a remarkably fresh album. But from the lighter-than-air choral flourishes garnishing the album’s intro to the sped-up soul strings driving the closing track, The Formula soars. The duo’s second full-length collabo shows them fully in sync: 9th’s lush productions are perfect fodder for Buck’s carefully plotted mid-tempo flow, and the MC rides the beats effortlessly. Throw it on your set and roll down the windows — this is cruising music.

Tucked somewhere in the works of Helen Gurley Brown, Donald Trump, Dale Carnegie, and others are words of wisdom that might help in your career. Whatever! Don’t comb through all those; just rely on Megan Hustad. The former book editor immersed herself in "success literature" and distilled her findings into the slim, doodle-covered How to Be Useful: A Beginner’s Guide to Not Hating Work. Insight No. 1: “Just be yourself” … is bad advice.

In the past few years alone, Michael Hofmann has translated a prodigious amount of German lit into English and served as editor of the comprehensive anthology Twentieth-Century German Poetry. His witty, wise Selected Poems displays Hofmann’s gift for evoking a sense of place, whether it be a suburban landscape (“The soil was cedar chips, sprinkler heads and ants”) or a ramshackle, anonymous flat (“Six floors up, I found myself like a suicide— / one night, the last thing in a bare room…”).

This isn’t just the latest, best entry in the popular, comically ultraviolent video-game series; it's a viable, more-fun alternative to actually going outside. Set in Liberty City — a living, breathing, fully explorable New York simulacrum, modeled in detail on four of Gotham's boroughs (sorry, Staten Island!) — GTA IV will finally allow you to enjoy Manhattan as you would if you were invincible, unprosecutable, and had unlimited access to firearms, tanks, and helicopters. You may never see real sunlight again.

Ever since Nintendo concocted the elusive perfect combination of cartoonish go-kart simulation and turtle-shell combat in 1996's classic Mario Kart 64, subsequent iterations have merely offered improvements. Mario Kart Wii takes erratic driving to the next level: In addition to the usual aesthetic upgrades — along with a twelve-player online mode and a host of added characters and racetracks — MKW makes use of the Wii’s motion-sensing controller and even comes packaged with the all-new Wii Wheel. It’s literally revolutionary!

Lost may be Agenda’s top pick for passive Thursday-night entertainment, but we can think of no better palate cleanser than Ugly Betty, which comes on two hours earlier and is about a Hurley-weight lighter in terms of emotional, psychological, and just general plot baggage. Here’s what you need to know: The show returns after its three-month hiatus with yet another twist in birthday girl Betty’s star-crossed romance with Henry. There. Now all you have to do is watch it.