caroline's 2025 media roundup

Published on January 1, 2026

Hello and happy New Year! Here are my opinions on various works I osmosed into my brain in 2025. Lists are not in any particular order.

Read

I read 51 books this year. Here are the ones I liked most:

Carpentaria, Alexis Wright: Sprawling Aboriginal epic set in a fictional Australian gulf town. Great prose, rewarding read, but definitely a lot of work to get through.
Borderlands/La Frontera, Gloria Anzaldúa: Mostly knew this book for its discussion of Chicana identity and experience, which I did enjoy, but I wish there was more discussion of its experimentation with poetry and hybrid forms.
The Waiter, Kwan-Ann Tan: Staying quiet on this due to upcoming Sine Theta interview (🤫), but it was fantastic and now I understand why people are video game completionists.
The Last Samurai, Helen DeWitt: Was originally turned off by the premise, but it is so funny and thoughtful and full of heart. Well-crafted, excellent narrative structure, extremely entertaining and ambitious. My favorite book of the year.
You Dreamed of Empires, Álvaro Enrigue (trans. Natasha Wimmer): Interesting commentary on colonialism in Latin American, and an acid trip of a book.
Women Talking, Miriam Toews: Another book with an ambitious narrative structure and style. A nuanced and thoughtful depiction of a group of victims reacting to horrific sexual violence and oppression.
The Street of Crocodiles and Other Stories, Bruno Schulz (trans. Celina Wieniewska): Beautiful and rather challenging prose. Overshadowed by its author's own mysterious and tragic reputation.
Speak, Memory, Vladimir Nabokov: Nabokov's memoir. As one would expect for Nabokov, the story of his life is hilarious and fascinating and exhaustingly intellectual and privileged.
Recognizing the Stranger: On Palestine and Narrative, Isabella Hammad: A well-written cultural and literary examination of the Palestinian struggle.
Hotel Iris, Yoko Ogawa (trans. Stephen Snyder): Deranged (complimentary). Not a book I'd recommend to polite company, but it was excellent.
Another Country, James Baldwin: I have a lot of feelings about this as a book set in NYC, much of it in Harlem, where I currently live.
Matrix, Lauren Groff: I just like reading about women who ruthlessly pursue the things they want.
Seven Empty Houses, Samanta Schweblin (trans. Megan McDowell): Horror story collection centered on houses, which is all I need. Megan McDowell has great taste in books.
The Lost Father, Marina Warner: I've already written about how much I love this book, but it's easily my sleeper hit of the year.
A Small Matter of Programming: Perspectives on End User Computing, Bonnie Nardi: An academic HCI book from the '90s is a bit of an unorthodox rec for this list, but I really enjoyed this examination of power via technology and who gets to be the builder vs. the user.
Taiwan Travelogue, Yang Shuang-zi (trans. Lin King): If I had to pick one book off this list for anyone and everyone to read, it'd be this one.
Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel Garcia Marquez (trans. Gregory Rabassa): IMO it's a story about the dangers of collective complicity in the face of injustice.
The Age of Innocence, Edith Wharton: I am not a romantic soul, but the levels of yearning & longing in this touched parts of my heart I didn't know existed.
Testaments Betrayed, Milan Kundera (trans. Linda Asher): It is ambitious to take on the legacy of Kafka (among others), but Kundera did a great job.
How to Do Nothing, Jenny Odell: What does it mean to "do nothing?" Far more philosophical and sociological investigation than self-help, despite the title.
How to Travel With a Salmon & Other Essays, Umberto Eco (trans. William Weaver): Pretty funny. I still think about the line "I asked for a lawyer and they brought me an avocado."
The Hearing Trumpet, Leonora Carrington: I love you Leonora Carrington and your weird old ladies.
The Essence of Software: Why Concepts Matter for Great Design, Daniel Jackson: I liked this because it's a good discussion of concepts in software design, but also because the examples are funny.
Nazi Literature in the Americas, Roberto Bolaño (trans. Chris Andrews): Structurally enigmatic.
The Garden Against Time, Olivia Laing: A cultural history of gardens. Laing's a great nonfiction writer, with a good blend of lived anecdotes and research.

Watched

Wednesday (season 2): Better than season 1. Jenna Ortega is trying so hard to make it good. Still wouldn't say it's good.
A Man On the Inside (season 2): It's about a liberal arts college and their conflict about whether to take donations from an evil billionaire. Funny and entertaining like all of Michael Schur's stuff, but also worryingly real and current.
Sakamato Days: Solid brain candy.

Movies

Frankenstein (2025): Great stuff. You can see del Toro's passion for the book.
Chungking Express (1994): Knew nothing about this except that it's set in Hong Kong and the visuals would be beautiful, both of which I received in spades. Pretty funny, great coloring.
Zootopia 2 (2025): I don't know why and I didn't even think it was good, but the first Zootopia movie has been my favorite movie since age 13. I've watched it 8 times. I waited so SO long for this sequel and honestly I have so many complicated feelings about it I don't know what to say. I did not expect it to get particularly positive reviews. I did not expect for my partner's film buff friend to call it "mature and topical." There's a lot going on here.
The Artist (2011): This felt like an ode to its medium in a way reminiscent of Flow (2024).
Guillermo del Toro's Pinocchio (2022): Watched this before Frankenstein and it's interesting to compare and contrast, as they are quite thematically similar. Kid-friendly in a dark, Coraline-esque way.
KPop Demon Hunters (2025): I've already complained that this was not good, but anyway, it was not good.
The Devil Wears Prada (2006): I watched this because I like fashion and I had a pretty good time. Extremely excited for the sequel coming out in 2026.
Intercepted (2024): Documentary about the Russian invasion of Ukraine, by a Ukrainian filmmaker. Interesting usage of audio clips of Russian soldiers over footage of Ukraine—very garrison mentality sort of vibe.
Phantom Thread (2017): I watched this because I like fashion and I had a pretty good time, but uh, not in the same way. One for the unhinged women enjoyers.

Played

I started playing Neva (made by the same studio who did Gris, one of my all-time favorites), which was pretty good. I also played some of Kwan-Ann's other interactive fiction games, which I am excited to discuss in an upcoming Sine Theta interview :-) Other than that, I honestly didn't play anything at all this year. Maybe I can pay attention to films or to video games but not both in the same year??

Anyway, that's a wrap. If you're here, thanks for reading all the way to the end. I am excited to read more books—currently I'm reading Mariana Enriquez's cemetery travelogue, which is as delightfully gothic as it sounds—and I hope you have a good 2026!