Over the last few years, I’ve gotten into the habit of logging and reviewing media I consume. I figured since I have all this data, I should start doing an end-of-year style roundup and offer some meta-commentary.
Books
Books I’ve read this year (and linked reviews):
- Midnight Library by Matt Haig (review)
- Models: Attract Women Through Honesty by Mark Manson (5/5, highly recommended)
- The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid (review)
- Salt, Fat, Acid, Heat by Samin Nosrat (review)
- We were liars by E. Lockhart (review)
- Permanent record by Edward Snowden (review)
- The 5 people you meet in heaven by Mitch Albom (review)
- Station Eleven by Emily St. John Mandel (review)
- Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race by Reni Eddo-Lodge (review)
- Influence by Robert Cialdini (review)
- Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar (review)
- Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance (review)
- Pimp: The Story of my life by Iceberg Slim (review)
- 11/22/63 by Stephen King (review)
- The Alchemist by Paul Coelho (review)
- Becoming by Michelle Obama (review)
- A very short Introduction to Logic by Graham Priest (review)
- Dreams from my father by Barrack Obama (review)
- Tuesdays with Morrie by Mitch Albom (review)
- The Mastermind: Drugs. Empire. Murder. Betrayal by Evan Ratliff (review)
- American Kingpin: The Epic Hunt for the Criminal Mastermind Behind the Silk Road by Nick Bilton (review)
- Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut (review)
- Impro by Keith Johnstone (review)
- The Gifts of Imperfection by Brene Brown (review)
- Hillbilly Elegy by J.D. Vance (review)
- How to read a book by Mortimer Adler (review)
Some of my favorites were Permanent Record, Models and 11/22/63.
I’ve been experimenting with audiobooks and here are some thoughts:
- I found a good strategy for audiobooks is to start at a relatively slow pace (typically 1.25x) and then slowly increase the pace as you understand more of the story
- I’ve found biographies to be delightful in audiobook form
- They are terrible for self-help and non-biographical nonfiction
- They generally work well with fiction but not always, especially if the book is dense
- They break the monotony of podcasts, while simultaneously being richer than them
- I often find it useful to have the PDF version of the book in reach, so I can copy paste excerpts I find interesting into my reviews
Out of fear of cluttering the blog, I decided against posting every single review as a standalone post. Most of my reviews are quite terse and meaningless especially for fiction works, so I don’t feel that they lend themselves to more interesting discussions.
Music
Bad Bunny’s DeBÍ TiRAR MáS FOToS was a sensational album, with my standout songs here being NUEVAYoL, BAILE INoLVIDABLE and DtMF. Every single song on this album is excellent.
Night Nurse by Gregory Isaacs is my new favourite reggae LP of all time.
Black Messiah by D’Angelo is ethereal. I also finally listened to Voodoo in its entirety and it is also unbelievably good. Peak R&B. Update October 2025: RIP D’Angelo. Very sad that we will never get to hear another D’Angelo masterpiece
“As the day must have its sun
And the night must have its moon
Sure as both must rise and fall
I’ll be there to see you through
Just as long as there is time
I will never leave your side”
~Betray my Heart (Black Messiah)
4 Da Ho’s by Uncle Waffles is an amazing EP, and some of the finest Amapiano music out there.
First time hearing Michael Jackson’s Thriller album and I thought it was amazing. Still feels fresh 43 years later.
I listen to Blonde by Frank Ocean at least once a year, and this year is no exception. It sounds better every time.
Movies
It’s been a slow year for movies on my end and I’ve only watched 4 this year. This number may go up during the holiday season since I’ll be on PTO. Here are the 4 that I watched and reviewed on my Letterboxd.
TV Shows
It has also been a fairly slow year for TV shows. My main constraint with these is the sheer time investment to complete a show. I am a notoriously terrible multitasker so I’m definitely not one of those people who can watch a show in the background while I do something else. I’m finding that sinking in a solid 10-20 hours of my life to watch something is becoming less seductive with time.
I did watch the new Black Mirror (season 7) and wrote a review for each episode on my blog I also watched Common Side Effects and the first season of FX’s Adults, whose reviews I’ve included below (since I have nowhere to publish these online):
Common Side Effects Season 1
The premise of the series is interesting albeit a little ludicrous. The allure of a drug that could cure anything is strong, and all the characters follow their selfish interests (mostly just profit), except, of course, the MC Marshall. I like the thought experiment, and part of the reason I decided to start watching this on a Tuesday evening was because I wanted to see how the creators of the show played with this idea.
The animation was perhaps one of my favourite parts of this series. The characters are modelled with such care and precision. You can see very subtle changes in their expressions and movements. It feels lifelike without being lifelike, and I think this significantly altered my perception of the show, in a good way. Enough to distract me from the gaping plot holes sprinkled all over the show.
Overall, pretty good show. Worth a quick watch, and will probably see Season 2 just for kicks, probably while on shrooms. 6/10.
Adults Season 1
It is surprisingly funny, and will likely rank highly in future comfort shows tier lists.
It is the first mildly relateable new-age comedy I’ve seen in some time. Bonus points for not having an annoying laugh track.
It portrays 20-something year-olds as clueless which I don’t think is the case generally, but I think it is accurate in portraying how confused Gen Zs are. That, I empathize with.
My take is that Gen Zs are, on average, lonelier (and generally less attractive) than the characters in the series, but that wouldn’t make for a fun series now would it? The ones I know are too busy being hazed by the job market, doing LeetCode and spamming job applications by themselves in their room.
Video Games
I’m not a big gamer and never really have been, but I had an irresistible urge to buy a Steam Deck last year and finally caved over the holiday season. I played Aperture Desk Job which is sort of a tutorial for the Steam Deck and that was pretty fun. I also began playing the Witcher 3 and Mad Max but got bored with them after ~5 hours of playtime each. I played Portal 1 and found it highly enjoyable, but I kinda forgot about it. There is a chance I might finish it and Portal 2 while I’m off work this Christmas. I bought a number of other games that I hoped to play but never got to them. Overall, a very slow year for gaming and I think it will only get slower with time.
Podcasts
I thought the Karpathy episode on Dwarkesh Podcast was very excellent and had high relisten value.
Considering it’s size and age, I think The Econ Nerds Live podcast made a number of excellent episodes. I enjoyed them thoroughly and would like to see more of them next year.
The Acquired Podcast made a series of 3 episodes on Google which I thought were beyond excellent. Ben and David have been doing an amazing job over the last 10 years and I’m glad the markets keep on rewarding them.
This is an old one but the Paul Krugman interview on Conversations with Tyler was one of the best he has done ever. Also very high relisten value.
My podcast diet has shrunk considerably over the years, and the only podcast I consistently listen to is CWT. I will maybe throw in some Dwarkesh, the odd Acquired or Founders episode, and very recently the MR Podcast.
My main issue with podcasts is that I never seem to remember much from what I listen to, and it sometimes just feels like background noise to me which makes me consider whether I’m just wasting my time and could probably get more value from listening to some music.
Other
This absolutely fantastic poem by the great LKJ and an accompanying mix by Nicolas Jaar