Chris Randle lives on Diet Coke and Pop Chips and spends Thursdays at the office listening to every Top 40 R&B and K-Pop song your little sister loves. Chris Randle is everyone’s little sister, really. <3 U CHRIS RANDLE! And here are the surprisingly masculine things he wants this year.

1. “It might appear to be the kind of checkout-line item you ignore while leaving a bad bookstore, but Perec’s newly translated novel sounds like an eminently Oulipean exploration of all the maddening permutations inside one neurotic office bureacracy.” $11 at Amazon.

2. “Terrible secret: I already own this. I reviewed it, actually. Still, I’ve never met a single person who actively disliked Kate Beaton’s witty, history-skewing comics, and I might test that by giving it to my mom.” $19.95 at Drawn & Quarterly.

3. “I’ve wanted/needed a pair of brown brogues forever, though I recently caved and ordered a somewhat cheaper pair. But these Alden shoes look like they’ve been burnished enough to use as a mirror instead, so please feel free to buy them for me.” $565 at Nomad.

4. “Cambridge satchels: sturdier than a tote bag, less callow-looking than one’s old university backpack, and definitely more stylish than either.” $145 at A2Zane.

5. “Topsy-Turvy was my own introduction to Mike Leigh’s films, and I don’t know if there’s a better one. The depiction of Victorian London is so immersive that it allows his many brilliant collaborators to unobtrusively show off.” $24-$32 at Criterion.