2025 Media Digest

Inspired by folks like Kottke.org, I've been keeping track of all the media I consume: Books, movies, TV, games. My method is pretty low tech: each month I rotate through a new pocket notebook that has a few pages dedicated to media diet at the front (the rest is todos and daily notes). I write down the stuff I consumed, recommendations, and reminders to check out later.

I also keep rough track of what I liked and what I loved. Not a five star rating system. Too complicated. Instead each entry has one three states:

No stars (Negative or neutral impression)

One star: I liked it

Two stars: I loved it

I like this process. Its simple and fast to do based on a gut feeling, and it means I don't get too hung up on ranking or superficial differences between two ratings. I recommend it! Plus, just the act of tracking everything is satisfying. It's nice to go back and reflect once a year.

Below are some of the most memorable things from my media diet in 2025:

TV

We don't watch a ton of shows, so we're pretty choosy with the stuff we do choose to watch, which means most of the stuff on my list I either liked or loved. I just won't commit to a show I don't like.

Twin Peaks **. We started this in late 2024 and rolled into S2 in Jan. This show is just the perfect mix of weird and so my kind of show. Still need to watch S3.

Silo Season 2 *. Despite the relatively small library, I think Apple TV has the best quality level of original programming. We loved season 1 and S2 is even better. In between I also read all three books, which I recommend equally.

The Good Place and Community **. Two shows we just completely missed early on, but so glad we circled back. Sometimes its good to just listen to the crowd on what's good, and these are two great easy comedies.

Severance S2 **. Perhaps not as amazing as S1 but still so memorable and gripping. A bit worried they may not land this ship properly in future seasons, but I'm fully along for the ride.

Andor S2 **. The best star wars has been since the original trilogy. I find myself recommending this to people who aren't even into star wars. Also, if you liked Rogue One as much as I did, this is a pretty cool fan project that recuts the film to be three more episodes of S2.

The Studio *. Cringy and stressful yet hilarious and beautiful at the same time.

Film

Anora **. Rarely do I agree on best picture winners but this was so, so good.

One Battle After Another **. We've got into Paul Thomas Anderson movies in the past couple years. This one might be his best.

Conclave **. I was so surprised how much I liked this one. Most unexpected love of the year I think.

The entire Mission Impossible Series **. These movies are all so fun. None quite top the original, but they're all far more entertaining than the majority of popcorn flicks out there. I have no love for Tom Cruise, but damn if he doesn't go hard for these ones.

Docs: Jimmy and the Demons, Girl Climber*. Saw both of these at our local indie theater's documentary festival. Both are studies of focus and obsession of a life's work. Both are great.

Books

A lot ofstandouts in both nonfic and fiction this year. On the nonfic end:

Midnight in Chernobyl (Adam Higginbotham)**. Studying a sudden disaster and the slow moving mistakes that caused it. This is the kind of page turner I like to recommend to people who think nonfic is boring.

Tunnel 29 (Helena Merriman) **. An unbelievable story of escape in Cold War Berlin that just kept ratcheting up the tension. I love finding history gems like this.

All the Shah's Men (Stephen Kinzer) *. Read this in the midst of the US strikes and tension with Iran this year. A great way to get educated on the origins of why current events are playing out the way they are. Big surprise: the US is a big reason we're in this mess to begin with.

Human Smoke (Nicholson Baker) *. A uniquely written book - tells the story of the lead up to WWII and the Holocaust, told entirely through newspaper clippings, speeches, memoirs and diaries. Stylistically reminded me of Secondhand Time.

Here Comes the Sun (Bill McKibben) *. One of the few current events books I read this year. A surprisingly uplifting book about the current trajectory of renewable energy. Gives me a bit of hope for the world, but we have a long way togo, and the US is going in the exact opposite direction right now. I'm seriously exploring solar arrays for our roof- but the sunlight hours are still not great in our part of the world - its a 20+ year payback period.

Meanwhile, in fiction:

Murderbot Diaries (Martha Wells)**. I blasted through all 7 books of this series. Love the pacing and novella style of most of them. Some of the best sci fi I've read in years. We liked the Apple TV show as well, but the books are unmissable.

Silo Series: Wool, Shift, Dust (Hugh Howey)**. Another top tier, page turner sci fi series. Unlike Murderbot, I think the show equals the books in quality (so far).

Saga Compendium 1-3 (Brian K Vaughn & Fiona Staples) **. I don't read a lot of graphic novels these days, but Saga is so memorable and unmissable. I've never cared for the feel of physical comic books, so we've been reading these as they release the big hard cover compendiums (so I'm not totally caught up yet).

Games

Besides books, video games are the dominant form of media I consume, and 2025 was a great year for games.

My tastes have evolved a lot in the past few years, I find a puzzle game is my favorite these days, particularly of the deduction variety:

The Case of the Golden Idol **: Weird and wonderful. Some truly challenging deduction. Reminiscent of one of my all time favorites, Return of the Obra Dinn. Still need to play the DLC, as well as the new game, Rise of the Golden Idol.

The Roottrees are Dead **: This absolutely consumed me for a solid 2-3 days. I've heard a lot of folks describe this as investigative journalism: the game. Again, very reminiscent of the appeal of Return of the Obra Dinn. They could make several of these a year and I'd still want more. One slight knock: weird generative AI imagery cheapened the experience a bit.

Blue Prince**: I only started this at the very end of December and I know for a fact this will make my 2026 list, as it has become a full on obsession in the past couple weeks. I love how often you can still find true originality in video games.

And the rest:

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33**. The complete package of a AAA game. Great gameplay, story, and soundtrack. No notes. Reminded me a bit of the strangeness and mystery of Annihiliation & the Southern Reach series.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle **. I heard this described as as the first Indy game that actually feels like one of the movies, rather than a thinly themed action game. I've joked this is my second favorite Indiana Jones movie after Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Hades II **. The first game was damn near perfect. And they somehow did it again here. It's very much an iteration of the first, but I still happily pour hours into it.

Resident Evil 2 (2019 Remake)**. This is a series I've never played before, and assumed wouldn't be for me. Horror games rarely are. But this was perhaps the biggest surprise love of games for me this year. Loved the puzzle of unlocking the map. It reminded me of the satisfaction of a great shortcut unlock in a Dark Souls game. FWIW I did try Resident Evil 4 next and didn't care for the difficulty spikes, so this may have been a one-off win for the series (for me, anyway).