Books, movies, and music: a look back

If you include books I read for work, some of which I truthfully read in manuscript form last year, and if you include a healthy number of graphic novels, I read just shy of 100 books this past year.

Which ones stand out now more than the others? Kevin Brockmeier’s The Illumination. Adam Gopnik’s Paris to the Moon. Art Spiegelman’s Maus. Jeff Smith’s Bone series. Jedediah’s The Manual of Detection. Tina Fey’s Bossypants. Jennifer Egan’s A Visit from the Goon Squad. Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird. Paul Harding’s Tinkers. And, of course, Lev Grossman’s The Magicians, for all the wrong reasons. But I’ve stopped being angry about that, honest.

I’m more than a little disappointed that I didn’t read much of anything these past couple of weeks, which all too often seems to be the pattern when I’m on vacation, but I’m going to try to up that number next year.

Then again, it’s not all about quantity; inspired, in part, by this Studio 360 segment, I’ve decided to re-read a certain number of books in 2012. I’m thinking maybe five or six, which seemed like a more reasonable number than my original plan of twelve, one for every month. I’ve always been vaguely jealous of people who, every year or so, curl up with an old favorite book once again, and I already have some titles in mind for doing just that in 2012.

I saw 59 movies in 2011. I’ll probably see at least one or two more before the year, and my vacation, is up. The best of them? Touch of Evil. True Grit. The Social Network. Green for Danger. The Fighter. The Third Man. All About Eve. Though, really, only a few movies I saw this year were truly awful. (I’m looking at you, Clash of the Titans.)

Musically, it was a really good year, and like always I had a tough time putting together my “best of the year” mix. But put it together I finally did — a couple of weeks ago, actually, so I could mail some copies out for the holidays — and here it is:

1. “Canaan” by Black Dub
2. “Truth” by Alex Ebert
3. “Rox in the Box” by the Decemberists
4. “Shell Games” by Bright Eyes
5. “Dreams” by Brandi Carlile
6. “Paris (Ooh La La)” by Grace Potter & the Nocturnals
7. “Police on My Back” by the Clash
8. “Optimist” by Zoe Keating
9. “the devil is in the beats” by the Chemical Brothers
10. “Helplessness Blues” by Fleet Foxes
11. “The Tiger Inside Will Eat the Child” by Fatty Gets a Stylist
12. “Party in the CIA” by Weird Al Yankovic
13. “Civilian” by Wye Oak
14. “Gimme Sympathy” by Metric
15. “Paper Forest (in the Afterglow of Rapture)” by Emmy the Great
16. “Job’s Coffin” by Tori Amos
17. “Charming Disease” by Gabriel Kahane
18. “So Far From the Clyde” by Mark Knopfler
19. “Somebody That I Used to Know” by Gotye (feat. Kimbra)
20. “Mad Mission” by Patty Griffin
21. “Tragic Turn of Events/Move Pen Move” by Dan Mangan & Shane Koyczan
22. “The Gulf of Araby” by Natalie Merchant
23. “Redemption Song” by Johnny Cash & Joe Strummer
24. “Gangsta” by Tune-Yards

I’m not entirely pleased with some of it, particularly in the second half. (It’s more or less chronological, and I’ve had less time to live with some of those later songs.) I also can’t believe I left off Adele’s “Rolling in the Deep”, which really was one of my favorites from the beginning of the year, despite how inescapable the song has become in the months since. I try not to fault an artist her success, and I’m always weirdly amused on those rare occasions when my tastes match up with top 40 radio.