Reading
I read a couple dozen books this year. There were no duds in the bunch but these five books were the cream of the crop.
Mark Twain by Ron Chernow is a 1,000 page biography of America’s “first celebrity”. I’ll admit it helped that I had toured the Twain house in Hartford, Connecticut recently, but the book stands on its own.
Truman by David McCullough. Another 1,000 page biography by the master of popular American history. It deservedly won the Pulitzer Prize.
James by Percival Everett. This is a re-telling of the Huckleberry Finn (which I also reread in preparation). Very clever and insightful.
Say Nothing by Patrick Radden Keefe. A history of the Troubles in Northern Ireland during the late 20th century. Absolutely riveting. It literally gave me nightmares.
Why Fish Don’t Exist by Lulu Miller. Miller is “stuck” after a failed romantic relationship. To get unstuck she researches the life of a remarkable scientist with an uncanny ability to overcome tragedies. What she learns about him, about American society, and about herself is mind blowing.
Watching
Looking back I was surprised at how many good shows, movies, and other things I watched in 2025. Here’s an abbreviated list of the best.
The American Revolution – A six-part, twelve-hour miniseries on how the US came to be. Another gem from Ken Burns with collaborators Sarah Botstein, and David Schmidt.
Say Nothing – A nine-part miniseries based on the book of the same name (see above). Excellent but disturbing and depressing.
Andor Season 2 – Star Wars for grown ups. The prequel to Rogue One (which I also watched). Way better than that sounds. Featuring Diego Luna, Fiona Shaw, Stellan Skarsgard, Andy Serkis, Forest Whitaker, and Adria Arjona.
Michael McIntyre, Showman – A Netflix stand up special. Absolutely hysterical.
American Primeval – A tail of blood and hate and deliverance from director Peter Berg. Taylor Hirsch, long left in the dust after playing Tim Riggins in Berg’s Friday Night Lights, makes a stellar protagonist.
Train Dreams – The life of Robert Grainger, a logger, a railroad worker, and a hermit who’s story runs from the late nineteen century into the 1960s in the northwestern US. Absolutely wonderful. Great acting (Joel Edgerton, William H. Macy, Felicity Jones, Kerry Condon, among many others), great cinematography, great editing, great score.
A House of Dynamite – Kathryn Bigelow’s latest masterpiece about the 19 minutes after a nuclear warhead is launched toward the US. It is told from three perspectives: the military, the White House, and the President. Whoa.
Baseball. I watched dozens of Washington Nationals games, both in person and on TV. Utterly depressing how a team with such promise utterly failed to deliver. Fortunately, my interest in baseball was redeemed by an absolutely amazing World Series and The Comeback: Red Sox 2004, a three-hour documentary about the 2004 Red Sox post season with commentary from (among others) Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Affleck’s memories matched mine to a T.
A Few Spokes Shy of a Wheel 