My 2013 List of Lists

Banksey’s “The Sirens of the Lambs”

One of the things I love most about this time of year is the irresistible crop of “best of” lists.  Such an indulgence. It’s fun to cast your mind back over the last year and reflect on books, movies, music, news events, plays, food… and indulge in a little comparison and evaluation.  Good stuff.

So, in a meta-sort-of-moment, here are my favorite “best of” lists….my 2013 list of lists.

National Public Radio’s Best Books of 2013.  With handy roll-overs to give you a helpful quote from a review of each book.

The Huffington Post presents the ten best Saturday Night Live skits of 2013.  Too bad the Paul Rudd & Vanessa Bayer skit when they can’t stop themselves from  dancing to a Fleetwood Mac ringtone couldn’t be put online – musical rights problems.

The Daily Beast presents the best art exhibits of 2013 and Design Boom’s choices for top ten art exhibits. Terrific photos.

I’ve become a big fan of NPR’s Tiny Desk Concert series, so for music, here is their 2013 in Tiny Desk Concerts and their 50 favorite albums of 2013 (with a song from each to play), and Billboard’s top 20 Critic’s Picks.

For the movies….here are the ten best films of 2013 according to Salon, Richard Brody’s picks (from the New Yorker) – he goes well past ten, and the top ten movie performances of the year.

Can’t have a list of lists without getting some of the more bewildering, offensive, and, well, just wrong things in there.  So here, thanks to Salon, are Fox News’ five most cringe-worthy moments of 2013.

Here are television’s most eye-popping moments of 2013, thanks to The Wrap.  Gotta love that roller dancing video with Stephen Colbert and Bryan Cranston.

The Associated Press’s top ten news stories of 2013 and The Independent’s news timeline of 2013.

How about SproutSocial’s top seven social media stories.  Interesting choices.

Ten funniest YouTube videos and the top viral videos of 2013.

Top ten gadgets from TechLand.

How about a look at Flowing Data’s best visualizations of 2013 (eye candy if there ever was some).

The editors of the science journal, Nature, picked these best science feature stories of 2013.

Wired Magazine always has intriguing collections.  Here’s their list of the top 13 Wired stories of 2013.

The Lives They Lived, a wonderful short profile series of intriguing people who died this year.

For a tasty treat, have read through the Year in Food – 15 stories of culinary innovation.

And let’s wrap this list up with the New York Times breathtaking Sunday Review’s Year in Pictures.