While other sites are unveiling their exhaustive, best-of-the-year lists, I thought I’d offer a few of my favorite things from 2006*, in no particular order:
- my wife, Emma
- our son, ‘Jack’
- Bugaboo Gecko stroller
- Canon Digital Rebel XT SLR camera
- Ceylon Sonata black tea from Adagio
- Bostonian shoes
TV:
Film:
- The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada
- Brick
- The Departed
- Marie Antoinette
- A Prairie Home Companion
Books:
- Massive Change by Bruce Mau and Jennifer Leonard
- Natural Capitalism: Creating the Next Industrial Revolution by Paul Hawken, Amory Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins
- What the Dormouse Said: How the Sixties Counterculture Shaped the Personal Computer Industry by John Markoff
- A Short History of Myth by Karen Armstrong
- Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell: A Novel by Susanna Clarke
- Wabi Sabi: The Japanese Art of Impermanence by Andrew Juniper
- Cloud Atlas: A Novel by David Mitchell
- The Laws of Simplicity (Simplicity: Design, Technology, Business, Life) by John Maeda
- Zag: The Number One Strategy of High-Performance Brands by Marty Neumeier
Music:
- Broadcast – Future Crayon
- M. Ward – Post-War
- Daedelus – Denies the Days Demise
- Isobel Campbell And Mark Lanegan – Ballad of Broken Seas
- Xiu Xiu – Air Force
- Cat Power – The Greatest
- Erasure – Union Street
- Nouvelle Vague – Bande a Part
- Ochre – Lemodie
- Sufjan Stevens – The Avalanche: Outtakes & Extras from the Illinois Album
- The Album Leaf – Into the Blue Again
- Juana Molina – Son
- Loscil – Plume
- Max Richter – Songs from Before
- Robin Guthrie – Continental
- Thom Yorke – The Eraser
- Ellen Allien & Apparat – Orchestra of Bubbles
- CSS – Cansei de Ser Sexy
- Hot Chip – The Warning
- TV on the Radio – Return to Cookie Mountain
- The Black Keys – Magic Potion
- ISAN – Plans Drawn in Pencil
- Carbon Based Lifeforms – World of Sleep
- Herbert – Scale
- Bliss – They Made History
- Boards of Canada – Trans Canada Highway
- Isol̬e РWestern Shore
- Bonobo – Days to Come
- Biosphere – Dropsonde
- Maps and Diagrams – Antennas and Signals
- Bent – Intercept!
- Jolie Holland – Springtime Can Kill You
- Joanna Newsom – Ys
- Hem – Funnel Cloud
- William Orbit – Hello Waveforms
- Band of Horses – Everything All The Time
- The Be Good Tanyas – Hello Love
- Camera Obscura – Let’s Get Out of This Country
Games:
Software:
Online:
* = I realize not all of these (the books for example) were released in 2006. But, it’s new if it’s new to me. Also, the list grew beyond a few. It was a good year.