My mother still asks me for a Christmas list every year, and this year I’m having trouble coming up with anything for it. The older I get, the harder it is to think of items for the list. There are plenty of things I want, but most of them are things I’m more than capable of buying for myself — books and CDs that can be purchased fairly cheap, second hand. Then there are the things I need and am more than capable of buying for myself, but am generally loathe to purchase, such as clothing. And then there are the things that seem a little too large for a Christmas list, like sofas and chairs. I no longer spend the month of December fervently hoping for Santa to deliver exciting toys and books and games, but it’s still kind of nice to get presents, and so I try to make sure the items I put on my list are things I really want, and not just filler. (My mother still likes to issue stern warnings to me and my sisters indicating that we’re not going to get everything on our Christmas lists. “No promises!” she wrote, in the e-mail that went out this year.)

So here’s what I’ve come up with thus far:

The new novel by Glens Falls native Lorrie Moore, “A Gate at the Stairs.” I read Moore’s 1990 short story compilation “Like Life” this year, and also saw her speak and read from her novel as part of the New York State Writers Institute’s fall series. She was very good, and I’d like to read more of her work.

“The Book of Basketball” by Bill Simmons This looks like a fun read, about my favorite sport, by the almost-always entertaining Simmons. It’s also the sort of book that probably won’t show up used at Dove and Hudson, Albany’s outstanding used bookstore, and so why not make my parents buy it for me? At 700 pages, with 1,000 footnotes, it looks like the “Infinite Jest” of the sports book genre.

“Columbine,” by Dave Cullen, who spent years researching the 1999 school shootings. The book is supposedly a triumph of research and reporting, and the excerpts I’ve read from it have been very good.

I wouldn’t mind getting my hands on the highly acclaimed “Olive Kittredge: A Novel in Stories,” but my parents own it, so I can just swipe it from them. I’m also interested in reading something by Russell Banks, an author I’ve never read before. But I think I can just borrow one of his books from someone, or pick up a used copy of one of his more acclaimed titles — “Continental Drift” is very good, I’m told — at Dove and Hudson.

There’s usually a long list of CDs I want for Christmas, but I’m having trouble coming up with anything except The Baseball Project’s 2008 album “Volume 1: Frozen Ropes and Dying Quails,” which is a little too obscure to make my parents buy, I think. My mom sometimes gets artists confused in her head, so if I ask for The Baseball Project there’s always the off-chance she’ll bring me something totally different. (One year she bought a Josh Groban CD for my sister, rather than a Josh Ritter CD. Thankfully, I managed to intervene and prevent this travesty of musical taste from taking place, but it was an awfully close call.) The Baseball Project does sound cool, though. They’re a side project for Minus 5 frontmen Peter Buck (of R.E.M.) and Scott McCaughey (of Young Fresh Fellows), and all of their songs are about baseball — the album includes the terrifically titled “Ted (expletive) Williams.”

I’m also really excited about Vampire Weekend’s forthcoming album, “Contra,” but it doesn’t arrive in stores until January. Vampire Weekend is interesting. I first heard the band’s self-titled first album about a year ago, while visiting my friends Geoff and Caroline in New Jersey. They’d gotten the album during the summer, and it was easy to see why they’d played it so much: the songs were light and bouncy and catchy, with an indie-pop sound that borrowed from both African pop music and classical music. I acquired the album a few months later — it was actually a Christmas gift — but didn’t listen to it all that much. Then, a couple of months ago, I really got into it. The songs cheered me up, and made me feel like singing. Now Vampire Weekend has a great single, “Horchata,” that’s even better than the songs on their first album. (Click here to listen to the song).

I’m also intrigued by the Soulsavers 2009 album, “Broken.” I’d never heard of Soulsavers until a few weeks ago, when David Dye played their music on the World Cafe, which airs Monday through Saturday on 97.7 WEXT. The band features former Screaming Trees singer and founder Mark Lanegan on vocals, and has sort of a grungy electronica sound. Again, probably a little too obscure for my parents, but would probably complement the Afghan Whigs/Twilight Singers section of my CD collection.

Speaking of music, this week I am going to two shows at The Linda, WAMC’s intimate performing arts studio. The first, at 7 p.m. on Thursday, features my friends in local Americana/roots band The Tern Rounders. The show is part of the Crumbs Nite Out series, which showcases local musicians, and it’s totally free. The Tern Rounders are also playing a free show at Revolution Hall on Nov. 24. Click here to visit the band’s MySpace page.

The second show, at 8 p.m. on Saturday, features Grant-Lee Phillips and the Northampton, Mass., band the Winter Pills. I saw Grant-Lee Phillips, who founded the eclectic and literate Americana band Grant-Lee Buffalo, in Birmingham, Ala., about nine years ago at this dingy little venue called the Nick. He was very good live, and after I got tickets to the WAMC show I pulled out his 2001 album, “Mobilize,” and gave it a spin. It was catchy and haunting, with beautiful, dreamily complex arrangements. I don’t listen to it much anymore, but I remembered why I was so entranced with it the first time I heard it. The Linda should be a good venue for him.

Anyway, back to my Christmas list. I’m thinking of throwing some boring stuff on it — kitchenware, pants, shirts — and asking for some other stuff that’s a little off the wall, like a gift certificate for a massage, because I could really use one, and maybe a nice teapot, because I could use one of those, too. Anyway, I’m sure there will be plenty of surprises, although some things are certain. Like, I know I’ll get socks in my stocking, and that my dad will give us all lay-around presents. (For more on that, click here.)

Got a comment? E-mail me at sfoss@dailygazette.net.