cartoon line drawing of face cartoon line drawing of face wearing a suit and tie

Favorites of 2025

January 1, 2026 — 8 minute read — books, movies, tv, music

Continuing the tradition started in 2023 and 2024, here are my favorite things I discovered this year!

Favorite Books

  • The Stormlight Archive by Brandon Sanderson had its 5th book released at the end of 2024, completing the first of two 5-book arcs that are planned. I had already read The Way of Kings twice, I believe, as well as Words of Radiance and Oathbringer, though when I read Oathbringer it had been several years since I read Words of Radiance and I just couldn’t remember too many important things, and I was confused for much of the book. I decided to read the entire series again when Wind and Truth came out, and it was worth every minute of reading and listening.

    Each book is wonderful. Some are a little slower than others, and some parts deal more with mental or emotional battles than physical ones, and I loved all of it. It made me laugh, cry, literally sit at the edge of my seat, and read hundreds of pages in a single night every time I reached the end of a book. It makes me want to be a better person in so many ways. Much ink has been spilled over Sanderson’s worldbuilding, and it’s absolutely incredible in these. It has become my favorite series I’ve ever read, and I’d love to read it again soon. Maybe I’ll re-read the whole thing every time a new entry is released!

  • Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo has been recommended to me (and all of my family members) by my sister Mira for a long time now, and I regret putting it off this long. It’s an excellent fantasy heist novel that I’d recommend to anyone. I’m looking forward to the sequel.

  • Effective Java by Joshua Bloch — as I wrote in my Goodreads review:

    Possibly the best programming book I’ve read (though I haven’t read that many). It’s so nice to read best practices advice that is accompanied by solid, clear explanations of why it’s a best practice, when it’s worth breaking the rules, and well-written examples.

    I got this through interlibrary loan and I’m bummed I’ll have to return it. I may buy a copy now, and if an updated edition for Java 21 is released, I will immediately buy that.

  • The Coming of the Third Reich by Richard J. Evans is a richly detailed look at how Hitler and the Nazi party took over Germany in the wake of the first World War. I listened to it, which certainly helped me keep momentum, but I’d like to read it again and take notes. There are so many fascinating things I’d like to remember!

  • Precious Little Sleep by Alexis Dubief helped me mentally and emotionally prepare to sleep-train my second daughter, which was probably the greatest thing we did this year. My wife took the first night and sat in the room with her while she cried in her crib for about 50 minutes and then she fell asleep. I took the next night, and she fell asleep in about 15 minutes. Then it was 5 minutes, 4 minutes, 2 minutes, and now we just walk out of the room after we put her in bed. She now usually sleep suntil 3 or 4 in the morning without waking up, instead of waking up every 30-40 minutes the entire night. The book itself has a lot of little tips on how to approach various types of sleep training and what to expect, and I think having absorbed a lot of it helped us face the hardest night of sleep training when the time came.

  • Pandemonium by Lauren Oliver surprised me with how dark and emotional it was. The prequel was a fairly straightforward teenage dystopian romance, but this book explored the grief and hardship and suffering of the people living outside the “utopian” part of the dystopia more than any others I’ve read. It made me cry at least twice.

Last year I wrote that I hadn’t finished Postwar by Tony Judt, though I loved it and was planning to finish it this year. I never did pick it back up, so maybe I will in 2026.

You can see all of the books I read (or listened to) this year on Goodreads.

Favorite Movies

I didn’t watch a lot of movies this year

  • Heretic is cool because it’s the most reasonable, kind depiction of Latter-day Saint missionaries I’ve ever seen in the media at large. It’s more thriller than horror movie, and more pro-faith than I expected as well. Hugh Grant played an incredibly believeable guy-who-wants-to-ruin-your-faith that made my skin crawl because I’ve talked to several people just like him (minus the, you know… murder).
  • Moonstruck is one of those movies my wife and I have seen on streaming services for years and frequently said we should watch half-jokingly. We finally did watch it laughed the entire time. We now frequently say “what is wrong can never be made right!”
  • Friendship left me wondering what on earth is was about. After ruminating on it for a day or two, I talked with my wife and we decided it’s an incredible movie about “how devastating it is to be a dude who can’t hang”. How it feels to meet someone super cool, try to befriend them, and feel completely overwhelmed by your own complete lameness. It’s similar vibe to Dream Scenario, where trying to avoid facing your own failure to be interesting is a central theme. I loved it.
  • Wake Up Dead Man was probably my favorite of the Knives Out series. I found the plot a little easier to follow (I think it’s a more straightforward whodunnit), but it was also pleasantly surprising in its sympathetic and human portrayal of religious, faithful Christians. Or at least one.

Favorite TV Shows

  • The Summer I Turned Pretty, season 3 is something I wasn’t planning on watching. I didn’t even finish season 2 because I hated it so much. But on a whim, my wife and I started the first episode and were completely lost in the drama. We constantly thought about each episode as it came out and seeing the new ones each Wednesday night was the absolute highlight of our weeks. It’s still stupid, but something about the drama of college soon-to-be-graduates wanting to get married made it so much more interesting. The ending was a little disappointing to me (too much potential conflict completely unaddressed), but I loved it.

Favorite Music

  • Ativan by Shallowater is like Low, Jason Molina, and My Bloody Valentine had a baby. Beautiful, quiet, alt-country slowcore that occasionally builds up to huge walls of distorted guitar.
  • La Llorona by Beirut is a song I certainly heard many years ago because my parents have the CD it comes from, but I only discovered it in a personal sense this year, and it’s incredible. Makes me desperately want to learn trumpet.
  • Nancy Tries to Take the Night by Black Country, New Road — I first heard this live in Salt Lake City and it blew me away. The studio recording is also fantastic. It’s a beautiful, tragic song with layers of guitars and piano and flutes moving in and out of harmony.
  • iPod Touch by Ninajirachi is so much fun. It’s closely tied to a memory of biking to Utah Lake as fast as I could go (along with LIVE RIGHT by Joey Valence & Brae).
  • Shame (PSYCH-O-PATHIC) by No Such Anmial is a newer single by my brother’s band, and it rocks. It’s short, loud, and fun. The guitar riff in the bridge makes me *chef’s kiss* every time.
  • Manchild by Sabrina Carpenter made me laugh out loud when I first listened to it. It’s also just a super fun pop song that I keep going back to.
  • Second Sleep/Star Eyes by Magdalena Bay are my favorite of Magdalena Bay’s new singles from this year. Last year I wrote that I found Mica’s voice annoying, but I’ve kinda gotten over that and I just like their stuff now!
  • Constant Headache by Joyce Manor is so much fun to yell/scream/headbang along to.

Software

  • Jdbi is a Java SQL mapping library that’s higher-level than JDBC and (a lot) lower-level than Hibernate and many other ORMs. I started using it for work a few years ago, but I’ve used it more this year and even volunteered to give a presentation on it to some of my team. It’s a total joy to use, and I even made my first (very small) contribution this year.

Miscellany

  • Allet Wallet & Micro Pen — Last year for Christmas my mom got me a Thread magnet wallet for my phone and I liked it a lot, but after about 9 months the elastic became too loose and my cards would constantly fall out. I decided to switch back to a traditional wallet and found this one, and while I’ve only had it for about 3 months, I love it so far. It feels really durable, looks great, and is very thin and light on its own, and I love having a tiny pen all the time. It’s super useful.