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;
my $author = '';

@sorted = sort {
    if ( $a->{title} eq "THIS BOOK FIRST" ) {
      $author = $a->{author};
      return -1;
    } elsif
    ( $b->{title} eq "THIS BOOK FIRST" ) {
      $author = $b->{author};
      return 1;
    } elsif
    ( $a->{author} eq $author and $b->{author} eq $author ) {
      return( $a->{title} cmp $b->{title} );
    } elsif
    ( $a->{author} eq $author ) {
      return -1;
    } elsif
    ( $b->{author} eq $author ) {
      return 1;
    } else {
      return (
            $a->{author} cmp $b->{author}
        or  $a->{title}  cmp $b->{title}
      )
    }
} @things_to_sort;

print Dumper \@sorted;