Must-Buy Books

It's no secret that I work at a library, and that before that, I worked at a bookstore. I used to buy a lot more books than I do now, simply because I was surrounded by them, available for purchase, all the time. Now, I check out a lot of books, which is good, because we bought a house and are on a tighter budget these days (like the rest of America--and the world!). But here's the thing: my library system doesn't always have urban fantasy or shared-world fiction. Most other genres I can get, and I can often convince our fiction buyer to get more of the paranormal romance and UF titles in--but the library's only got so much money and shelf space. We're part of a consortium, which improves my odds, and we have access to a large state catalog for interlibrary loans. But some books? They're just not in the system.

Which means I've been putting together my "must-buy" list of authors who I know have books coming out this year. As much as I was really bummed to hear about the slow-down of the Eberron line of novels from WotC, I suppose I should be grateful--I was buying all the Eberron books, because I'd always felt like I couldn't keep up with Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance fiction (beyond a couple of key series in each setting). I wanted to have all of one world's, and Eberron was new and shiny (and there were a lot of really good stories that I was glad to follow, and very few clunkers).

And now, of course, I've put the "must-buy" list down somewhere in the house and have completely lost track of it. *sigh*

So, bad economy or not--who is on your must-buy list? What moves an author or series to the top of the list? For me, I feel a greater loyalty to the people who are friends of Myth, the Universe, and Everything, because I feel like I know those folks on some level--and who doesn't want to support their friends? The big new qualifier is whether I can borrow books from the library or from friends.