As I write this, there’s only about 9 hours left in 2006. I thought it might be a little too gauche if I let this post slip over to 2007. To start, I’ve reviewed about 30 books here over the past 5 months. I think that works out to a review for every 2 or 3 that I read. Trolling my memory for things I liked from the entire year1, I come up with…
A Few of the Books I Really Liked This Year:
- The Batman In: Nine Lives – I love Motter & Lark’s noir-ish rendition of the Gotham world. The limited, careful color palette is really cool.
- Economics for Real People – Gene Callahan’s introduction to economic thinking is a nice refresher for nerds like myself, and a friendly welcome for those who wouldn’t read something like Man, Economy, & State. There’s also a PDF version of the book.
- Beautiful Evidence – Edward Tufte makes a nice contribution to “forever knowledge” about visual communication here. Lovely work in a lovely container.
- Getting Things Done – David Allen’s book didn’t convert me completely, but I haven’t found other personal development books that were so concrete and actually worth exploring in depth.
- Understanding Comics – Scott McCloud’s book helped to revive my love for the form.
- The Ghost Map – Steven Johnson’s compelling take on Sickness and the City. Though I think some of his other books are more tightly written, I like the bigger, broader ideas here.
- The Broker – I don’t read a lot of pop fiction, so I wasn’t expecting John Grisham to be such a good writer. Besides being a fun read, he also has some well-crafted moments.
Worst Book:
- Mary, Mary – I made sure not to set the bar too high for James Patterson, but this was still really awful. Ugh.
Best-Loved Music:
- Feist: Let It Die – So much tasteful variety here. Aside from Leslie Feist’s great, great voice, the orchestration and instrument colors in this album are pretty incredible. There’s also a killer cover of the Bee Gees tune “Love You Inside Out”.
- Joanna Newsom: Ys – At first listen, I wasn’t too sure. 30 seconds later, I was in heaven. Folksy wailing over tricky harp riffs. Trust me on this one.
Worst Music Surprise:
- Modest Mouse: The Moon & Antarctica – Borrowed this from a friend who thought I might like it. We’re still on good terms.
Personal Technology:
- Samsung SGH T-509 – To the elation of all my friends, I broke down and got a cellphone this year. And I rather like it. What it really does best is stay unobtrusively in my pocket.
- Apple 24″ iMac – Still drooling over this one. I’m a little ashamed that I still don’t feel like I have enough workspace.
- Pen & Paper – Nothing beats this combo. I try to always keep them around.
Best-Loved Blogs:
- Jason Kottke does a great job. After my brief time blogging, I appreciate his work even more. The quality is so consistently high. Great editing, and he’s willing to be patient to give better context or a personal contribution. Love it.
- Shaun Inman‘s redesign is really cool.
- Joshua Blankenship‘s blog is awesome. So much energy and optimism there. He makes me want to be more creative.
- The Mises economics blog has a consistently great mix of high-brow academics and low-brow insight into everyday life.
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1. Disclaimer: All memories are subject to change. If I remember something really good, I’ll add it to the list.
Mark Larson 