Best of 06

Here are my 2006 "best of's" for music, books, television and film, roughly rank-ordered.

Music:  Sometimes I get down on music, but looking back it was a really great year. There are still many 06 releases, like Bob Dylan's Modern Times and Joanna Newsom's Y that I've yet to listen to.

• TV on the Radio,  Return to Cookie Mountain. The most original and exciting new(ish) band in years.
• Gomez, How We Operate
• Corine Bailey Ray, Corine Bailey Ray
• Cat Power, The Greatest
• Belle and Sebastian, The Life Pursuit
• Neko Case, Fox Confessor Brings the Flood
• Ornette Coleman, Sound Grammar
• Sondre Lerche, The Duper Sessions
• The Ranconteurs, Broken Boy Soldier. Proof that one really good song can carry an album. 
• The Hold Steady, Boys and Girls in America
• The Decemberists, The Crane Wife
• Beck, The Information
• Red Hot Chili Peppers, Stadium Arcadium. Frusciante's brilliant guitar work makes this record.
• The Who, Endless Wire
• Cassandra Wilson, Thunderbird
• Bruce Springsteen, We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions

Books (non-fiction):  A lean year for books, but some solid ones out there.

• Bill Buford, Heat.  The year's best by a wide margin. One of the best I've read in years.
• Daniel Gilbert, Stumbling on Happiness.  Proof that academics can communicate to a broad audience without dumbing things down.
• Chris Anderson, The Long Tail
• Alain De Botton, The Architecture of Happiness
• William Taylor, Mavericks at Work

Television and Film: Ever since The Sopranos, television has shown it can compete with motion pictures. This year it did much more than that.

• The Wire. Television and film at its very best.
• The Office
• 24
• 30 Rock. The most hilarious thing I've seen in a long time.
• Curb Your Enthusiasm
• Little Miss Sunshine
• A Prairie Home Companion
• Weeds
• Big Love
• Arrested Development
• Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip
• The Daily Show/ Colbert Report
• An Inconvenient Truth
• Borat