And so ends 2025! I think it is rather typical for us when years end to breathe a sigh of relief and offer thanks to God for a new year, but honeslty 2025 was perfectly fine for me! Nothing particularly bad happened to me this year, and I made a lot of new friends, found a lot of new music and ways to use the internet, and travelled to a new country!
Books
This year... was not great for reading for me, honestly. I read a grand total of ONE book: The Emperor of Gladness by Ocean Vuong, which I gave 5 stars. I'm currently working through Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, and hopefully I can get that done before the end of the year; will need to read about 60 pages per day to do so.
As per usual, my reading goal for next year is 12 books. Let's see if I reach it! My planned reads are:
- Any Person is the Only Self (Elisa Gabbert)
- Martyr! (Kaveh Akbar)
- Shuggie Bain (Douglas Stuart)
- Do Not Say We Have Nothing (Madeleine Thein)
- Babel (R.F. Kuang)
- Septology (Jon Fosse)
- Things in Nature Merely Grow (Yiyun Li)
- The South (Tash Aw)
- O Sinners! (Nicole Cuffy)
- Dream State (Eric Puchner)
- House of Day, House of Night (Olga Tokarczuk)
- Palaver (Bryan Washington)
I'd like to hopefully also do little book reviews here!
Movies
I watched two movies in 2025, and had two different experiences: Portrait of a Lady on Fire and A Minecraft Movie. I absolutely adored Portrait of a Lady on Fire and thought it was one of the most beautiful and emotional movies I've seen. A Minecraft Movie... well it was a fun social outing at least!
Might also try to watch a movie a month for a total of 12. Ideas:
- Yi Yi (2020)
- The Tree of Life (2011)
- Suspiria (2022)
- Parasite (2019)
- Saltburn (2023)
- The Lighthouse (2019)
- Femme (2023)
- The Color of Pomegranates (1969)
- In the Mood For Love (2000)
- Millennium Mambo (2001)
- Sátántangó (1994)
- Suk Suk (2019)
Music
In comparison to my year of flop in terms of books and movies, music wise I once again always win! Since I stopped using Spotify in favor of Tidal (and I want to eventually stop using Tidal as well but I don't have any portable media players), I'm not entirely sure what a month-by-month breakdown would be, but nevertheless here are some of my favorites!