Recommendations
A running ledger of recommendations — books, movies, music, video games, wine, food, attractions, and the rest. Annotated, opinionated, and updated when something earns more space, for better and for worse.
· 22 of 22 items
| Item | Type | Year | Rating | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Cunk on Life Charlie Brooker | Movie | 2025 | ★★★★★ | Faux-shoshin mockumentary. Perfectly executed delivery on asking life's greatest questions. |
| Tár Todd Field | Movie | 2022 | ★★★★★ | A slow-burn drama for anyone who likes calling folks on their bullshit. Cate Blanchett at her most. |
| Animal Farm Andy Serkis | Movie | 2025 | ★★★★☆ | Andy Serkis's animated take on Orwell. B-tier but unfairly maligned — Serkis and the voice cast deliver despite the discourse. |
| Death by Lightning Mike Makowsky | TV Series | 2025 | ★★★★★ | Garfield's improbable rise and his assassin's stranger arc — Macfadyen, Shannon, and Offerman at full tilt. |
| How To with John Wilson John Wilson | TV Series | 2020 | ★★★★★ | A New Yorker's archive of footage rebuilt as poetry — about scaffolding, wine, and being alive. |
| Interior Chinatown Charles Yu | TV Series | 2024 | ★★★★★ | Tropes deployed expertly to tell something stranger — a season-one ending that refuses to settle. |
| Piranesi Susanna Clarke | Book | 2020 | ★★★★★ | The House. The transgressive thinking. A novel that finds my exact wavelength. |
| Rejection Tony Tulathimutte | Book | 2024 | ★★★★★ | Short stories that stick like tar — and a final piece that's prescient enough to think about for years. |
| The Mysteries Bill Watterson · John Kascht | Book | 2023 | ★★★★★ | Watterson and Kascht give adults the fable they didn't know they needed. |
| Calvin and Hobbes Bill Watterson | Book | 1995 | ★★★★★ | Perhaps the most formative work in my reading life — Watterson distilling the universe into a teacup. |
| Thank Goodness You're Here! James Carbutt · Will Todd | Video Game | 2024 | ★★★★★ | An interactive movie of a game — a two-hour visual delight by Coal Supper, voiced by Matt Berry. |
| Romeo is a Dead Man Goichi Suda | Video Game | 2025 | ★★★★★ | Another fever dream from Suda51 and Grasshopper — combat that suits simple sensibilities, with ultraviolent revenge noir as the bonus. |
| Walden Henry David Thoreau | Book | 1854 | ★★★★★ | The book I return to most. Read it slowly; read it twice. |
| Stalker Andrei Tarkovsky | Movie | 1979 | ★★★★★ | A film that rewards being watched in winter, alone. |
| The Pale King David Foster Wallace | Book | 2011 | ★★★★☆ | Unfinished, and better for it. |
| Untrue Burial | Music | 2007 | ★★★★★ | London at four in the morning, in twelve tracks. |
| Severance Dan Erickson | TV Series | 2022 | ★★★★☆ | The best thing on television about white-collar work. |
| Letters to a Young Poet Rainer Maria Rilke | Book | 1929 | ★★★★★ | Earnestness as a literary mode. Required reading. |
| Disco Elysium Robert Kurvitz | Video Game | 2019 | ★★★★★ | A novel disguised as an RPG. The writing is the thing. |
| Clos Rougeard, Le Bourg Charly & Nady Foucault | Wine | 2014 | ★★★★★ | The standard bearer for serious Loire reds. Not a casual pour. |
| Storm King Art Center — | Attraction | 1960 | ★★★★★ | 500 acres of large-scale outdoor sculpture in the Hudson Valley. Bring sturdy shoes. |
| 1000xRESIST Remy Siu | Video Game | 2024 | ★★★★★ | A visual novel disguised as a video game. Canada-built, Australia-published, and unlike anything else — a book you cannot put down. |