I’m a part of what was probably the final generation of teenagers to listen to their music on cassette tapes.   As such I spent a good deal of time in my formative years agonising over tracklists and the correct order in which songs should appear.  I wasn’t quite as bad as the guys in High Fidelity, but the list was still an important means of clarifying how I felt about things.  Likewise I’m a big believer in Ray Bradbury’s advice that listing helps galvanise creativity.  When I wasn’t tracklisting I was sticking bits of paper to the walls and scrawling lists of story ideas on them.  None of this is good for your social life, but it is fun in an obsessive kind of way. 

The end of a year is the time when the power of the list waxes strong.  The papers begin to fill up with them.  The ten best this and the ten worst that.  So, with an acknowledgment that yes, this is a slightly self-indulgant thing to do, today I’m following suit and beginning my list for 2009.  During this week and next, as we slip into 2010, I’m going to post about ten things that have meant something to me during the course of the year.  As any fellow list-makers out there will confirm, it is impossible to list definitively.  These ten items will not be ranked, and the things I think they will include as I type tonight may well have been dropped in favour of others come next week.  For the most part I’m going to try to include things you can find or at least get a flavour of on the internet, although it’s harder to do so with the books (there are – at least at the time of writing this – some musicians, a website, a film, etc. on the list).  Speaking of the books, they’ll all be on the list because I discovered them in 2009, not because they were published during the year.

2009 has been unlike any other year for me.  The publication of The Girl with Glass Feet and subsequent kind words from its readers have been a dream come true and I’m grateful to everyone who has given up their time to read it.  On a personal note, 2009 brought with it some incredibly tough times, and in that respect I’m hoping for a far gentler 2010.  Such ups-and-downs have, I’m sure, been common to many people this year.  I wish you all the best for 2010.