It’s a dorky pastime, one I’m guessing only and people who work in book publishing engage in, but I’ll admit it, I get a kick out of seeing people read on screen. While Lost was one of the few shows that actually sparked sales after featuring of books, it’s still fun to see books appear on screen, even if it’s for a few brief seconds and no sales ensue. On that note, I recently saw one of my favorite literary cameos of the fall, in the upcoming Sundance hit, The Freebie.

The Freebie, which opens in New York on September 17, is about a hipster-ish thirtysomething LA couple that decides, in order to invigorate their stagnating sex life, to allow each other to have a one night stand. Katie Aselton (wife of Mumblecore mainstay Mark Duplass) stars and directs, and her hubby is played by Dax Shepard (yes, he of Punk’d fame).

While the biggest revelation of the film may be that Dax Shepard can actually act, I thoroughly enjoyed the fact that his character is seen reading, in one of the first shots of the film, Dash Shaw’s The Bottomless Belly Button. It was a nice little moment of character development, or maybe just smart window-dressing, to see the male half of this aimless couple reading Shaw’s celebrated graphic novel, which was one of the “in” books of 2008. And, with its very distinctive cardboard-style cover, it was cool to see Shaw’s book in living color, so to speak.

On that note, what are some of your favorite literary cameos?