25 for 2025

I consume a LOT of media, and I don't have any self-judgment about it. Why? Because even though everyone is up in arms about how much screen time we all accrue and how pervasive media is and how algorithms are ruining our lives (it's a lot, it is, and they are), most media are still produced by human beings with experiences and expertise.

And as someone who loves to ✨know things✨ and loves to learn things even more than knowing them (whatever knowing is, anyway), getting to see or experience what other people think or how they interact with the world is so critical to making it through the day. Or the eternity that has been the year of our lord 2025.

I fundamentally believe that it is possible—necessary, even 😈—to consciously consume media. I really cherish writing, music, and voices that challenge me and make me think, or even just offer me words I need to hear or doorways to things I need to feel.

I think about them as little stepping stones for whatever journey I'm on at that particular moment: you absolutely can learn by tromping through the grass and mud, but sometimes it's satisfying to get to step onto a perfectly formed little platform and see how it feels, or to be able to leap between stones because you can see the landing in front of you.

Anyway without further ado, fuck Spotify Wrapped 🥳 make your own reflections of your own trends and share it with people you care about. Looking back at the things that got you through the year is a great way to see what you really learned, what you were processing, and what kinds of voices you need more of in your life.

So here's my 5x5: 5 books, 5 articles, 5 podcast episodes, 5 songs, and 5 physical movements that were something special to me this year.

5 books

Whether we're doing audiobooks or physical books, it takes a lot for me to recommend an entire monograph. These are all truly special because I'm much more likely to dig in to articles (as you'll see later) or podcast episodes that have a much more narrow focus that I can really chew on and go deep with. You'll notice almost exclusively non-fiction here, and that's true of my typical reading habits. But don't let that scare you!

Eric A. Johnson and Karl-Heinz Reuband — What We Knew: Terror, Mass Murder, and Everyday Life in Nazi Germany. An Oral History

It's critically important that you read the foreword of this book so you understand the premise: so many people like to say or argue that "regular Germans" just "didn't know" what was going on around them, so how could they have stopped it?

This book is a culmination of a multi-year research study with survey sampling and some snowball sampling that coalesces into a series of brief oral histories of both Jews and non-Jews during the Nazi regime. It has all the characteristic shortcomings of oral history, obviously, but it's simultaneously devastating and also manageable to take at a digestible pace.

Lucio Urtubia — To Rob a Bank is an Honor

This kind-of memoir feels just like asking a favorite aging relative to hear what their life was like. It's a bit haphazard and a bit grandiose in places (the foreword is an important read, again, don't skip it), but it feels comfortable and delightful and really encompassing. Not a procedural history but a truly personal one.

Michael Waters — The Other Olympians

This is one of my favorite styles of book: really well-researched history that has a narrative flow and structure. I'm still working through my thoughts about trans people in sports (that essay or set of essays is coming, I promise), but this book has shaped a lot of my ideas at this point and is well worth the read.

Peter Gelderloos — Organization, Continuity, Community

This is a quick little book (a single essay, really) that is exactly enough content. It's less high-and-mighty about the concept of Community™ and much more structural-functionalist about what roles exist in community and how they help it function (or not).

Giorgio de Maria — Twenty Days of Turin

The sole fiction entry on my list, but still thematic to everything else I read 😅 I think this book is best contended with when you know the context of it, but even if you didn't, its brevity is inviting enough for you to read between the lines. Parts were also very cathartic in my mind-hole when I was in an angry place this year.

5 Articles

When I have 148 tabs open, the preponderance of them are articles I'm still meaning to read—maybe I've "snoozed" them for several months in anticipation because I know they need room to breathe, or maybe I've already read them but they were so impactful I still need them close at hand. These are the ones that floated to the top of the thousands I've read this year.

Empire of the Absurd

Every so often I (and 300 people on Bluesky) think, "I just didn't expect the descent into fascism to feel so stupid." But perhaps I should have. Because perhaps all authoritarianism requires absurdity.