Thursday, January 01, 2009

"Best of..." 2008

I always enjoy looking through the "Best of... 2008" lists published at the end of each calendar year. Here are some links:

Books:
• Here are the NYTimes' 100 Notable Books of 2008 and what their critics selected as the Top 10 Books of the year.

• Here are the Washington Post's Best Books of 2008 and what their critics selected as the Top 10 Books of the year.

• NPR has a whole bunch of awesome books lists, from fiction to non-fiction, graphic novels, self-help books, crime novels, etc. Check them all out here!

•  Liz Spikol lists several books that should not have been published!

•  The editors of Seed Magazine list the top science books of 2008.

• The L.A. Times has a number of interesting picks on their lists, too.

Music:
• As always, NPR has a lot of really good year end music lists. Here is a list of ten unknown music gems from 2008. Here is a best of, jazz, kids music, African, Songs of the year, classical, top 5 jazz cds, mixtapes, top 10 albums, another top 10, listener picks, best vinyl and more jazz.

• Slate's critics countdown their favorite music of '08 and here they put out their best jazz CDs of 2008.

• Popmatters has a slew of different music-related lists that are worth looking at.

• Soul Sides has a best of 2008 old and new lists.

• Mark Anthony Neal offers up his 2008 playlist.


•  Mojo's top 50 CDs of 2008.

• Paste Magazine has listed the best live acts of 2008. Here and here you can find best of music lists by two of their critics, as well.

• Here, a Village Voice critic counts down his best jazz CDs of the year and here is their poll.

• Here is a Village Voice list of the worst lyrics of 2008.

•  Spin's top CDs of 2008.

•  Dan Sweeney's list of best CDs of 2008, plus a lot of reader lists in the comments.

•  Gabriel Beltrone lists 10 global artists to check out.

• Here are Rolling Stone's top 50 CDs of 2008.

•  Q's top 50 CDs of 2008.

Films:
• Rottentomatoes.com lists their best and worst films of 2008.

Slate's Top 10 Films of '08

• The folks at the Village Voice and LA Weekly polled alternative press film critics and came up with this list of best films of '08.

• NPR's top film critic gives his top 12.

•  The Best and Worst Eco-Films of 2008.
Politics:
•  Slate has published a compendium of the best political cartoons of 2008 as well as the "best political viral videos of 2008"

• John Nichols, over at The Nation, lists "The Most Valuable Progressives of 2008"


Top 10 robocalls of 2008 elections.

• And here are Alternet readers' top videos of 2008.

• The Village Voice runs down the biggest scandals of the conservative blogosphere.

Other Cool Lists:
• Chief Theater critic for the NYTimes, Ben Brantley, offers a slide show and review excerpts of the best Broadway had to offer in 2008.  Here is what Brantley's colleague, Charles Isherwood, lists as the best theater of the year.

•  Project Censored has put out its annual top 25 censored news stories of 2008

•  Wired Magazine's 13 most popular science stories of 2008.

• Good Magazine looks ahead to the biggest disease-eradication efforts on 2009, 8 ways people are shirking good old fashioned capitalism, 7 technologies that will change our lives more than the new iphone and 7 advances in science that will change the world in 2009!

•  Not quite a list, but still very interesting, Seed takes stock of "the state of science" in 2008.

•  Popular Mechanics has a list of the best gadgets in 2008.

•  Harper's magazine offers a typically Harper's-ian year end review.

•  Wired Magazine lists the 10 most awesome applications for the iphone in 2008.

•  Doctors Without Borders lists the 10 biggest humanitarian disasters of 2008.


•  Jamie Frevele lists the biggest WTF moments of 2008!


•  24/7 Wall Street lists the ten companies that laid off the most workers in 2008.  

•  The best and worst fashion trends of 2008.

•  The Washington Post lists the best tv of the year.

•  100 friends you should see before you die.


• The people at Paste Magazine have made a "meta-list" of the 10 best lists of 2008...

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