2025 Year in Review

It's my annual list of lists... the best books, TV shows, and podcasts of 2025!

One of my favorite things about this time of year is the “best of” lists. I used to spend days collecting all my thoughts and composing wide-ranging, lengthy lists at the end of every year for my old blog, mspink.com (preserved for my own nostalgia).

The last blog I posted on my old site before archiving it for the ages was my 2020 year in review… what a way to end an era!

These days, I suspect my readers are not looking to devour tens of thousands of words about every little article and YouTube video I enjoyed throughout the year, so this year I’ve distilled my favorites into three concise categories: TV shows, books, and podcasts.

The illustrations are courtesy of ChatGPT, which did an amazing job compared to last year. As always, my favorites were not necessarily all new in 2025, but that’s when I consumed them, so there you go. Let’s get to the first list…

My Top 12 TV Shows of 2025

• The Pitt
  By far the best new show of the year. This decades-later successor to ER is so gripping, human, funny, tear-jerking, and masterfully directed, I watched the entire series through at least twice and recommended it to everyone I know.

• Severance
  The show everyone was talking about last year is a deliciously weird, literally mind-bending exploration of work-life balance taken to nightmarish extremes.

• Pluribus
  By the minds that brought us Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul comes a diabolical meditation on what it’s like to be a free-thinking misanthrope in a world full of mind-melded puppets. What would you do? Exploit the situation for your own excessive appetites or try to save humanity from its polite-to-a-fault, peace-loving alien invaders?

• The White Lotus
  Season after season, this sharp social satire dissects privilege, entitlement, and human failings through the slow-burn unraveling of wealthy vacationers in glorious locales.

• Hacks
  Smart, funny, equal parts celebrity roast and sweet exploration of ambition, aging, and the uneasy friendship between two women at very different stages of life.

• The Last of Us
  The haunting post-civilization drama that had us all calling Pedro Pascal our apocalypse daddy in season one, took a turn in season two that left audiences divided, but I’ll still be there for season three.

• Fargo
  The darkly comic crime anthology continues, introducing a new cast of twisted misfits; Midwest absurdity meets razor-sharp satire and ultra-violence.

• Squid Game
  A brutal and addictive allegory of economic inequality and compulsive gambling, where desperation drives ordinary people into deadly competition for the entertainment of corrupt elites.

• Reacher
  The comically self-aware performance by cartoonishly jacked Alan Ritchson, who plays “just Reacher,” a retired military police officer turned morally-driven drifter, makes the otherwise formulaic fare supremely watchable.

• Étoile
  I binged this stylish, behind-the-curtains dive into the elite ballet world with my mother, a former ballet dancer and choreographer, who loved its blend of drama and reverence for the art form. Sadly, cancelled before its second season.

• Dark Matter
  Based on the excellent book by Blake Crouch, this high concept sci-fi series about parallel lives, alternate choices, and quantum entanglement keeps viewers guessing until the very last satisfying seconds.

• Interview With the Vampire
  Lush, emotionally intense and much closer to Anne Rice’s original vision for her immortal characters, reimagining the saga of Louis and Lestat in a more modern setting, introducing new characters and retrofitting others for 2025 sensibilities.

According to my Libby app, where I “read” most of my audiobooks, I checked out far fewer titles this year than last (73 vs. 132), but I was always listening to something. Here are my top 12…

• All the Worst Humans – Phil Elwood
  An insider account of modern political spin, revealing how power, money, and egos collide behind the scenes to orchestrate crisis and public outrage.

• Apple in China – Patrick McGee
  A blistering examination of Apple’s reliance on China, about how supply chains, state power, and corporate greed became entangled with far-reaching political and economic consequences.

• Quantum Supremacy – Michio Kaku
  A big-picture exploration of quantum computing and how it could radically reshape science, security, and everyday life in the very near future.

• Evil – Julia Shaw
  A psychological deep dive into why ordinary people commit horrible acts, challenging traditional conceptions of good and evil.

• Lights On – Annaka Harris
  A thought-provoking examination of consciousness that goes far beyond the usual questions about self-awareness to explore whether it could be a fundamental property not just of life, but of the universe itself.

• Selling Sexy – Lauren Sherman & Chantal Fernandez
  A revealing look at the financial and social forces behind the unprecedented rise and (relative) decline of Victoria’s Secret.

• The Ageless Brain – Dale E. Bredesen, M.D.
  A practical guide to protecting cognitive health and reducing the risk of dementia through lifestyle and prevention.

• Alive – Gabriel Weston
  A meditation on survival, the body, and medical ethics, blending personal experience with the realities of modern medicine.

• More Everything Forever – Adam Becker
  A sharp critique of Silicon Valley’s faith in endless growth, extreme longevity, and techno-utopian promises, and the dangers of mistaking ambition for inevitability.

• Gray Matters – Theodore H. Schwartz
  An accessible exploration of neuroscience, showing how understanding the brain can help us all think better, feel better, and live healthier, longer.

• Blood in the Machine – Brian Merchant
  A timely history of the Luddites that reframes them as early critics of unchecked technology and labor exploitation.

• Run – Blake Crouch
  A fast-paced sci-fi thriller about a family’s fight to survive in a world where half the population has turned suddenly murderous.

Some of these are video favorites on YouTube (Answers with Joe, The Daily Show, etc.), but most are audio-only on Spotify. All of these are in my weekly rotation.

• What Went Wrong
  An entertaining autopsy of famous films, unpacking how big ideas, egos, and studios clash and ultimately come together to create Hollywood’s most infamous disasters and beloved blockbusters.

• Unspooled
  Another thoughtful film podcast that revisits classic and influential movies, examining why they matter and how they hold up over time.

• Search Engine
  Ever wonder why some people’s genitals trip the x-ray machine at the airport every time? Or what happens when a cemetery goes out of business? Quirky, in-depth explorations of questions you won’t find answered anywhere else, with humor, charm, and genuine curiosity.

• You Must Remember Manson
  From Karina Longworth, maker of “You Must Remember This,” comes a deeply researched series reframing the Manson murders within the broader cultural, media, and Hollywood context of the late ‘60s.

• Starzology
  If you’re not already listening to my friend Alison Price and I every Sunday, check us out for our wide-ranging conversations, bringing astrology down to earth for beginners as well as seasoned students if this ancient art form.

• Ologies
  A joyful science podcast featuring interviews with experts across a dizzying array of disciplines, making complex and obscure topics accessible and funny.

• Betwixt the Sheets
  A playful yet rigorous cultural deep dive into the history of sex, love, and relationships, revealing the intimate behaviors of our ancestors, from the ancient Egyptians to 1950s housewives and every bedroom in between.

• American Hysteria
  A sharp examination of moral panics, conspiracy theories, and cultural fears, connecting past hysteria to modern media and politics.

• Answers With Joe
  An optimistic science and futurism podcast tackling big questions about technology, space, history, and the future of humanity.

• Breaking Points
  The only political commentary show I check in on regularly, offering a non-traditional perspective of all the day’s fuckery in roughly bite-sized segments.

• The Daily Show
  I’ve loved Jon Stewart for decades now, and his supporting cast is rock solid these days, providing a satirical take on the news, blending comedy and journalism in exactly the right proportion.

• The Joe Rogan Experience
  Honestly, I don’t care if he helped get Trump elected because, let’s face it, that was inevitable. If you listen to his views, he’s anything but MAGA, and I’m still a fan of his long-form, wide-ranging conversations with guests from every walk of life; science, pop culture, comedy, and politics (I skip the MMA episodes).

Alrighty, that was my 2025 Year in Review! Thanks for reading and subscribing. I appreciate each and every one of you.

Happy holidays to one and all!