The Best Things I Read In 2025

Books with pictures

  • Puma Blues - re-read the first indie I ever came across and it blew my mind all over again

  • Death Of Copra - The end of something great

  • Assorted Crisis Events by Deniz Camp and Eric Zawadzki - One of those “smart guy” sorta stories you have to figure out as you go. Might as well be catnip.

  • Downlands by Norm Konyu - a powerful graphic novel about place and history

  • Gilt Frame by personal favorite Matt Kindt and his mother, Margie Kraft Kindt - a wonderful mystery with a wonderful twist

  • Helen Of Wyndhorn by Tom King & Bilquis Evely - Not always easy for me to get into King’s work but this one had me from the very start.

  • Minor Arcana by Jeff Lemire - Another favorite creator of mine has an ongoing showcase of his genius again

Books without pictures

a year for whatever you call sci fi things that are still considered “serious” non-genre work

  • Never Let Me Go by Kazuo ishiguro - if you measure great literature by how fucking depressing it is, then this is a classic.

  • How High We Go In The Dark by Sequoia Nagamatsu - A little hard to get into, being about a pandemic and the end of the world. Once I got stuck in I couldn’t stop reading.

  • Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer - very different from the film, but very enjoyable.

  • Years Of Rice And Salt by Kim Stanley Robinson - Hovered on the edge of obsession for me. I will definitely go back and re-read.

Can’t shake the self-improvement / self-exploration habit either

  • The Wonder Switch by Harris III - saw him speak this summer was inspired to check out the book. Good advice

  • A Minute To Think by Juliet Funt - simple idea, big advantages

  • Nonviolent Communication by Marshall Rosenberg - I should probably revisit and make it a little more actionable in my life, but I haven’t yet.

Movies

No I haven’t seen F1 yet.

Television

I won’t go on about how much I love The Diplomat, Foundation, Dark Winds, or Shrinking, since they’re ongoing.

  • Your Friends And Neighbors - fun and funny crime

  • Mobland - not funny but very crime-y. Tom Hardy and Pierce Brosnan are brilliant.

  • Dark Matter - buried on Apple TV+, but this was a great one to stumble on

  • Andor - If I had my way, this is what Star Wars would be

  • Alien: Earth - Noah Hawley’s unique brand of storytelling is back on Tv

  • The Beast In Me - Claire Danes and Matthew Rhys get crazy

meta playlists

Best of Sophisticated 2025

Best of Bouncy 2025