use strict;
use warnings;
use Data::Dumper;


my @things_to_sort = (
                   { author => 'bart', title => 'skateboarding' },
                   { author => 'lisa', title => 'postmodernism' },
                   { author => 'marge', title => 'hairstyles' },
                   { author => 'lisa', title => 'THIS BOOK FIRST' },
                   { author => 'homer', title => 'donuts' },
                   { author => 'bart', title => 'coolness' }
                  );



my @sorted = sort {
         $a->{title}  eq  "THIS BOOK FIRST" && -1
     or  $b->{title}  eq  "THIS BOOK FIRST" &&  1 
     or  $a->{author} cmp $b->{author}
     or  $a->{title}  cmp $b->{title}
} @things_to_sort;

print Dumper \@sorted;