Best Song: Kings of Leon “Sex On Fire”

After the release of “Because of the Times,” I couldn’t help but miss the garage rock sound of their first two albums. The first single off their fourth album, “Only By the Night,” holds the promise of grungier, grittier songs to come. Caleb Followill returns with the pained, passionate vocals for which he is known, and is accompanied by the Southern rock guitar riffs the band does best.

Best Album: Coldplay “Viva La Vida (or Death and All His Friends)”

With this album, the band departed from Chris Martin’s falsetto and slow, pensive ballads, and tried something different. “Violet Hill” is a contemporary media commentary, while the title track sounds like a revolution. The band made boastful claims this album was their attempt at the best of all time, and the effort was a valiant one, however, unfulfilled.

Best Book: “Breaking Dawn,” by Stephenie Meyer

While I have not yet read this book, I call “Breaking Dawn” the best book of the summer in honor of the four-book series it concludes. After being run over by ‘tweens at midnight, Barnes and Noble book release parties and slews of Web sites with pictures of Edward Cullen at every corner of the Internet, the “Twilight” series has inspired a Harry Potter-esque phenomenon. Any book that gets the masses excited about reading is high on my “best” list.