2025 This Fluid Thrill Music Awards

[Playlist at the bottom of this post if you can't wait to listen]

Best Song: Stephen Wilson Jr - 'I'm a Song - Live at the Print Shop'

This category is reserved for the best song released in the calendar year... But 2025's winner isn't clear cut. The song appears on the 2025 album, son of dad (deluxe), a reissue of a 2023 album with extra tracks, including this one. As the 'Live at the Print Shop' suggests, this is a live recording. It was actually a YouTube video, posted in October 2024. Here it is:

 

So many things to say about this song about songs... But firstly, kudos to the sound engineer at the Print Shop.

I didn't come across this song (and Stephen Wilson Jr) until December 2025, when 'I'm a Song' made Rick Beato's top 10 songs of 2025 (more YouTube!). I got chills listening to the first minute, and went straight to the full video, and listened to it about six times more that day, tearing up each time. 

My son was like, what is happening? 

It's so good, I said.

The song went straight onto our roadtrip playlist as we went to Christchurch and back for Christmas, Naseby and back for a camping entree, and Golden Bay and back for proper camping (complete with four straight days of rain at the end). That's a lot of k's, and a lot of spins for this track.

I also devoured son of dad, and there's some bangers on there, too. 'Cuckoo', 'Patches', 'American Gothic', 'Year to Be Young 1994', 'Holler from the Holler'. And then there's some slow, sad songs from the heart, like 'son of dad' and 'Grief is only Love.' Sometimes the grunge influence is to the fore (in 2025 SWJ also released a 4-song EP with covers of Nirvana, Temple of the Dog, Postal Service and Smashing Pumpkins!). Sometimes the Nashville country songwriting is a little too... obvious (think 'Fancy Like' by Walker Hayes and Ke$ha). Sometimes you wish he'd open his mouth a little wider when he sings. But all in all, I love this guy.

(Bonus points for his backstory, which you can research yourself. Late starters/late bloomers in the music business a definitely a softspot for me. And the fact he's married to Leigh Nash, the lead singer from Sixpence None The Richer, is one of those weird, I can't believe these historical timelines intersect things, like how Oxford University was established before the Aztec Empire emerged.)

Honourable mention - songs (that don't appear on any of the top albums below)

• Knockin' Heart - Hamilton Leithauser (no shame in second place)
• Irish Goodbye - Somebody's Child
• Dinosaur - Soft Launch (strong Local Natives vibes)
• Louie - Arcy Drive
• Black Dog / White Horse - Big Special
• Elephant - Jasmine.4.t
• Bovine Excision - Samia
• Bloodline - Truman Sinclair (manages to overcome the vibe it's a Neil Young cover)
• Marionette - Twisted Teens
• Wet Dog - Dead Gowns
• Under the Table - Balancing Act (actually from late 2024, but I'm hella late with this list; nobody's perfect)

Top 10 albums of 2025

Friendship - Caveman Wakes Up

Friendship have been releasing albums since 2017, but I first came across them in 2025. 'Free Association' was the song. It might still be my favourite of theirs. But then I'll listen to the opening bars of 'Tree of Heaven'... Or the part in 'Resident Evil' where he sings 'Some shithead in my living room / Playing Resident Evil'... 

There's a Bill Callahan quality to Dan Wriggins' voice, a Dave Berman/Silver Jews vibe to the lyrics. 

I mostly had band-written bios on Spotify, give me a Wikipedia page anyday, but Friendship's bio is pretty good at describing their music/this album:

...Okay in elevators, not great for dinner. On Caveman Wakes up, the band's historically capacious definition of country music grows wider still. Shambolic guitars are offset by flute pads, bleary poetry is set against a Motown rhythm section.... like if Talk Talk came from a dingy Philadelphia basement and was fronted by James Tate... steeped in reference and experimentation, delivered casually and as a dire warning, dedicated, above all, to music's creative soul.

Petey USA - The Yips

Another artist that's been around a while but was new-to-me in '25. This album might have made the top spot if it included 2023's 'I tried to draw a straight line', which includes the lyric: 'You see, how I've been kinda angry / since the Kings lost to the Lakers / In the Wester Conference finals / Ain't it funny when you find out everything is fake.'

Niche sporting interests aside, The Yips is brimming with great songs, like the title track/album opener, 'Model Train Town', and 'As Two People Drift Apart'. There's a definite LCD Soundsystem vibe to the instrumentation (as if LCD Soundsystem wasn't also derivative), but the arc of the compositions bend towards indie rock rather than EDM. There's an emotional rawness to the lyrics that James Murphy could never reach. This is dance music to listen to while lying face down on your bed.

Blondshell - If You Asked for A Picture

This was my contender for the album where my taste and my 13-year-old-daughter's taste would overlap (she loves Tate McRae, Adela, Katseye, the Pitch Perfect movies, K-dramas and Queer Eye). But I've not heard her play Blondshell of her own volition yet. This is not conducive evidience: I remember buying Jimi Hendrix's greatest hits on CD when I was about 13 and hiding it from my dad in case he thought I wanted more of his music recommendations.

I really rated Blondshell's debut, which made my top 10 in 2023. 'IYAFaP' is a step up in terms of songwriting and composition, but it still has the bedroom grunge undercurrent.

Lead single 'T&A' typifies this growth, opening with a wall of guitars, then pulling back to a Nirvana-esque subdued verse. 'Thumbtack' has a country-vibe. Lyrically, these songs aren't a world away from Olivia Rodrigo ('I don't wanna be your mom, but you're not strong enough' - 'Arms'), but they sit a lot better against this musical palette than a pop-forward one. And there are songs addressed to a parent, or a lover where the singer is the one doing the letting down. A song like 'Event of Fire', with its refrain 'What if I'm burnt out?' is ageless / timeless. Though maybe I'm glad it doesn't hit the same with my 13-year-old daughter.

Julien Baker and Torres - Send a Prayer My Way

I've had albums from both artists make my top ten before. But nothing from Torres had ever quite reached the heights of 2015's Sprinter. And Julien Baker's mental health issues have been well documented (I had tickets to her subsequently cancelled Wellington show in 2019) and wondered if this teaming up with other artists (see: Boygenius) was becoming a crutch.

So my expectations for this collab weren't through the roof. 

But boy howdy. 

It's very country. And very good.

'Sugar in the Tank' sounds like the Eagles x City of Color x Fleetwood Mac.

'Bottom of a bottle' is a top five Brandi Carlisle song.

'Tape Runs Out' is literally inspired by Songs: Ohia.

These are all compliments by the way.

And writing this, I've loaded the full album up in my queue. So good.

Ben Kweller - Cover the Mirrors

Late 2024/early 2025 I went on a Ben Kweller discography dive. And then news of a new album emerged - how it would be a tribute to Kweller's sixteen-year-old son, Dorian, who died in a car accident. I wasn't sure I could handle a full album of this (Kweller is less than 2 years older than me). But then I got obsessed with 'Dollar Store' (featuring Waxahatchee) when it came out in Feb and it didn't seem too on the nose. Three days before the full album, 'Oh Dorian' (featuring MJ Lenderman) came out and it wasn't maudlin. It was catchy. More country than anything Kweller had done before.

So too the full album manages to smuggle in sadness and loss while you're marvelling at the breadth of genres this one-time grunge wunderkind is incorporating. 

Viagra Boys - Viagr Aboys

Time for a change of pace. And tone.

The Swedish post-punkers sing about Chandler Bing, trying to get free sweaters from LL Bean and your mum's OnlyFans. 'I am a man that's made of meat / you're on the internet looking at feet.' This is just the first song.

As if an edgelord gained sentience / a sense of humour.

Butthole Surfers for the age of GenAI.

And then you reach 'Medicine for Horses', track 6, which drops the bpm way down. It's a bit Carseat Headrest, a bit Arcade Fire. 'Hey baby, can I borrow your car? / I wanna drive it into a wall and make us two-dimensional.'

Totally different. Totally great.

Florry - Sounds Like...

Okay, so the name of this album encourages the kind of comparisons I've already indulged in too much in this list, so I will not reference another artist when talking about Florry.

From the ragged chaos of opener, 'First it was a movie, then it was a book,' to the careful tunelessness of 'Hey Baby', the uniting thread of all these sounds is a love of 1970s country rock (not naming names). 

There's a Spotify playlist that sometimes pops up on my homepage called 'Indie Twang'. This, my friends, is Indie Twang bandisonified.

Geese - Getting Killed

This album was on A LOT of best of lists. Call me basic. Call me a follower. Call me fucking Ishamel, because at least I was on the bandwagon for 3D Country, which also made my Top 10 in 2023 (a theme seems to be emerging).

Back then, I said:

"3D Country" is basically a whole album designed to get my son to complain. From the discordant jangle and drunken vocals of album opener '2122' to the tuneless trumpets, broken glass and violins on closer 'St Elmo', there's a lot of provocation going on...

This album, more than any other in 2023, made me feel like there was still a place for noise and denim in somewhat-popular culture. 

Not everyone is a rock critic, or reads their best of lists or listens to those kind of podcasts, so whether Geese has ascended above somewhat-popular culture remains to be seen.

Getting Killed is a little less rock, a little more musical. But Cameron Winter's voice still noodles all around the scale. His lyrics are sometimes psychedelic, sometimes political, sometimes daft. It's easy to see the backlash building. But for now, lets enjoy this moment where a discordant art rock group rules the roost.

The Amazons - 21st Century Fiction

The last few slots on a list are always the hardest. Do you go for the album with a couple of standout tracks but the rest kind of never stuck? Or something that was solid from start to finish but its highs were never quite as high.

I'm opting for the former here.

My Blood' is such a good track. It's very big. Unshy about taking up space. Which isn't something most of my indie twangy list so far can really boast. There's definitely something about the UK that allows space for bands to be more straight-ahead. Think the 1975. Think Foals. 

21st Century Fiction adds to the canon of stadium rock while remaining underrated. 

Flycatcher - The Wrench

'Brother' came out as a single in 2024, and doesn't appear until the penultimate track on The Wrench, but it's very good. Definite Nirvana vibes - calm verses, 'Yeah, yeah' chorus, but a much cleaner guitar sound, a more straight-forward approach to lyrics. 'I wanna be like my brother / He learned to work with hands / He just dismantled the engine on my minivan.' 

The lack of cynicism is refreshing. 

There's no reversal in subsequent verses. His brother remains virtuous and worthy of emulation. The singer may be a dirtbag, but the fact he admires this virtuous, simple man, means maybe there's hope for him too.

The rest of the album is good. Highlights just now as I re-listened : 'Dissolve', 'Down', and album closer 'Super Bowl' ('You always hated Tiny Dancer / I can't agree with you on that').

Honourable mentions - Albums (* means they also had a song in contention for best of the year)

• Communions - Unreconciled
• NO CIGAR - Under the Surface
• Preoccupations - Ill at Ease
• Perfume Genius - Glory*
• Alan Sparkhawk & Trampled By Turtles - self-titled
• Ryan Davis & The Roadhouse Band - New Threats from the Soul
• Hayley Williams - Ego Death at the Bachelorette Party
• Snocaps - Snocaps
• Wednesday - Bleeds*
• Miya Follick - Mid July*

Albums from 2024 I missed at the time, but would have probably waltzed into that list

• Wunderhorse - Midas
• Wild Pink - Dulling the Horns

Older album & artist that I listened to for the first time in 2025 and liked the most

• Lowest of the Low - Shakespeare My Butt (1991)

Best song from 1981

• Amoeba - Adolescents

And if that's not enough, you can check out my lists from the past here: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021 albums and songs, 2020, 2019, 2018 albums and songs, 2017 albums and songs, 2016, 2015, 2014, 2013, 2012.

Peace.

This Fluid Thrill 2025 Best Reading

Kia ora and apologies for lateness. But with lateness comes improved accuracy (an error in my spreadsheet meant one of my top 3 reads of the year wasn't featured in my Best of 2025 Instagram post). 

2025 was unprecedented. Certainly in terms of the quantity I read. 149 books in total.

The year before I read 100 (which was a record). My target for 2025 was 100 again. See below all the graphs for my other targets.

(And see all my previous annual reading posts here: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2021, 2020, 2019, 2018, 2017... 2014, 2013, 2012, 2011, & 2010.)

The main reason for overachieving was signing on to be a judge for the fiction category of the Ockham New Zealand Book Awards. This meant I had to read 52 books from late September to around New Years. It's not even accurate to call this a pile of reading. It was several piles of reading. 

(And with the short-listing and eventual winner yet to be decided, I still have a fair amount of re-reading ahead of me, thus potentially messing with my 2026 reading stats...)

I've included these books in my overall stats, but when we get to the best reads, I've excluded all NZ books released in 2025 so as to retain confidentially/mystery/plausible deniability until the final awards announcement in May. But I should say that IF I had included these books in contention, six of these books would have been in my top 11 (there was a three-way tie for 9th). So there were definitely some good'uns!

Reading stats

A continual theme here will be how the Ockhams reading has skewed the stats. Starting with year of publication. It not unusual for my reading to be dominated by books published in the last 2 years. In 2024, it was 20 books released that year vs 25 in 2023. But in 2025, it was 78 (52%) from that year and only 19 from the previous (13%).

In terms of nationality, normally the top 3 is US, NZ and UK, with NZ sometimes on top by a slim margin... Not so slim in 2025:

In terms of the type of book (novel vs story collections vs non-fiction etc), novels normally come out on top. Last year 60% of books read were novels... this year, 60% were novels. Which is interesting. There were a bunch of story collections and a couple of novella collections in my judging reading... but the reason novels didn't dominate further is because while doing my Ockhams reading, I didn't/couldn't listen to fiction audiobooks while commuting or gardening or whenever I'd normally slip an audiobook on. So it upped the non-fiction quotient slightly and bought balance to the force.

Speaking of audiobooks, in 2024 I listened to 77 audiobooks and in 2025 I listened to one more. So all the growth was physical books. Not just the Ockhams reading, but more poetry collections, including my Geoff Cochrane project, which I need to complete in 2026.

Every year I try and track the diversity of authors (somewhat of a proxy for diversity of perspectives and topics). It's imperfect. I don't fully research the biographies of each author. So, for example, I don't report on percentage of LGBTIQ+ authors, but at least four of the books had these communities at the heart of their content. Even gender, which I have tracked, is imperfect. Dudes came out on top in terms of book count in 2025 (and have for three of the last four years, for a variety of reasons).

Okay, that's enough graphs. One last thing to do before I re-reveal my top ten from the 97 non-Ockham eligible books I read in 2025... to check in on how I did against the reading targets I set for 2025 (long before I knew I'd be judging anything).

• Read 100 books - TICK
• Read at least 10 single-author poetry collections - TICK (read 15)
• Read at least 20 physical books - TICK
• Read at least 10 non-fiction books by female authors - TICK (read 12)
• Non-white + translated > 40 - FAIL (27 read)

For 2026, I'm going with just two targets:

• Non-white + translated > 40
• Read at least three fat classics that around at least 100 years old

Top Ten Books I Read in 2025*

Stoner by John Williams (1965)

What I said about it in March:

A little late to the revival, or maybe I'm the start of the 3rd wave, but v v v v v good.

Tin Nimbus by Geoff Cochrane (1995)

What I said about it in October:

Hadn't read this before. If you've only read Geoff's poetry, this novel is pretty much what you'd imagine his novel would be like. Alcoholism. Attention to life at the level of the sentence, the word, the syllable. And the sex scene - the chutzpah! 

Flesh by David Szalay (2025)

I'm only now realising that this top three, which could have gone in any order, are each published 30 years apart and deal with masculinity (and how to write a novel) in quite different ways.

What I said about Flesh in August:

on the Booker Longlist [it subsequently won]... this one hit for me. V v v v v good.

Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte (2024)

I didn't write comments on any of the books in my April-May post (I swear I started something quite long about it... But I was doing a running thread of my reads on BlueSky at the time (it was my 30th book to that point) and said: 

Still thinking about Rejection (lol). Tony Tulathimutte really went there!

A Good Winter by Gigi Fenster (2021)

I missed this off my Jan-Feb post for some reason, but said this on BlueSky:

A creepy tour de force of narrator voice. Everyone will know an Olga (but this Olga out Olgas them!). So, so good. I can't believe it's 4 years since it came out already (blame the COVID years). Highly recommended.

The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe (2024)

All I said about this in my August post was, "Good", which is kind of rude. I've been a fan of Coe's since I read The Rotters Club and his biography of B.S. Johnson. Proof has Coe's signature trickfulness (as opposed to trickiness) on display. Could even be a good place to start, if you've never read him before.

Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabhattin Ali (1943)

Didn't say anything about this in my December post, but it was interesting on first listen, and doubly so after the foreword, which was put at the end of the audiobook, and provides some historical and biographical context that was illuminating. Reading a lot of physical books again this year made me realise how much I like the guff around the main text (dedications, acknowledgements etc), and you miss a lot of that with audiobooks. Having a reflection / appraisal of the work at the end of the audiobook is great. Like the New Yorker Fiction Podcast. I think I just want to go back to being an English Lit undergrad...  

It's Only Drowning by David Litt (2025)

The first non-fiction book on the list. Again, I didn't say anything about it in December, when I was prepping for a long weekend trying to surf at Riverton. Litt's account of learning to surf, and surf alongside his MAGA-or-worse brother-in-law, is frequently hilarious.

Show Don't Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld (2025)

What I said about it in October:

Kinda hated that a story made me empathise with Jeff Bezos. But: goooood stories

Will Sittenfeld get in the top ten next year for the threepeat? Time will tell!

This is For Everyone by Tim Berners-Lee: the inventor of the World Wide Web (2025)

What I said about it in December: 

the rare book where the author gets the subtitle rather than the title. Made me feel a bit less dark on the future by showing how the internet could have been ruined multiple times over the last four decades so maybe there's hope yet.

December 2025 Consumption Diary

Okay, last day of 2025... For completeness I'll get this December post out of the way, and over the next week or so post my best books and best music posts (though I've put the highlights on Instagram already, with top 5 tv shows as a bonus).

MUSIC - DECEMBER

BOOKS

As previously, I'm not going to list all the books I've read as part of judging the fiction category of the Ockham NZ Book Awards. I've finished my first read through of the 52 entries, and will now be returning to some to help with long-listing and short-listing decisions the panel needs to make in January. 

It's Only Drowning by David Litt (non-fiction, audiobook, US, 2025)

Paper Cage by Tom Baragwanath (fiction, audiobook, NZ, 2022)

Incidental Inventions by Elena Ferrante (non-fiction, audiobook, Italy, 2019)

A Poetry Handbook by Mary Oliver (non-fiction, audiobook, US, 2025)

Driving to Treblinka by Diana Wichtel (non-fiction, audiobook, NZ, 2018)

Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali (novel, audiobook, Turkiye, 1943)

TV SHOWS

Nobody Wants This - Season 2

Basically that's it. Lots of reading! And being away (3 days in Riverton for daughter's birthday and the last week in Christchurch for Xmas) means minimal screentime. Nice.

In pulling together my top 5 shows for 2025 (Andor, Adolescence, Unreal, The Rehearsal, Win or Lose), there's quite a few shows I'd like to catch-up on when I get time and have the right subscriptions, like Pluribus, Platonic, Task, Hacks (last I checked, there was no legal way to watch the latest season in NZ).

October-November Consumption Diary

MUSIC - OCTOBER

BOOKS

Note: as I mentioned last time, I'm a judge for the fiction category of the 2026 Ockham NZ Book Awards (books pubbed in 2025, longlist/shortlist/winner announced in 2026) so need to read about a dozen novels/story collections a month to be done by the end of the year and make longlist decisions early in Jan. I won't include any of these books in my summaries here, but will include them in my end of year reading stats. Safe to assume I'll crush last year's 100 books read (and whatever the previous record for physical books read might be).

Jumping Sundays: The Rise and Fall of the Counterculture in Aotearoa New Zealand by Nick Bollinger (non-fiction, audiobook, NZ, 2022)

A Different Kind of Power by Jacinda Ardern (non-fiction, audiobook, NZ, 2025) - kinda annoying how obviously this book was written for a North American audience so every aspect of NZ life needed to be glossed.

Kurangaituku by Whiti Hereaka (novel, audiobook, NZ, 2021) - I'd seen Whiti talk about the recording of this audiobook on social media, so was keen to check out this version. (She does a great job).

May You Have Delicious Meals by Junko Takase (novel, audiobook, Japan, translated, 2025)

Kill Your Darlings by Peter Swanson (novel, audiobook, US, 2025)

New Transgender Blockbusters by Oscar Upperton (poetry, physical book, NZ, 2021)

A Thousand Blues by Cheon Seon-ran (novel, audiobook, South Korea, translated, 2025)

This is For Everyone by Tim Berners-Lee: the inventor of the World Wide Web (non-fiction, audiobook, UK, 2025) - the rare book where the author gets the subtitle rather than the title. Made me feel a bit less dark on the future by showing how the internet could have been ruined multiple times over the last four decades so maybe there's hope yet.

Proto: How One Ancient Language Went Global by Laura Spinney (non-fiction, audiobook, UK, 2025)

MOVIES & TV

Nobody Wants This - Season 1

The Chair Company - Season 1

Inside Llewyn Davis

Tick, tick... boom

Forrest Gump* - my daughter was watching it for the first time, and I found it hard to tear myself away to do the dishes or whatever. Moved a lit faster than in my memory. 

Fighting with my Family

And quite a bit of WWE content, which may or may not translate into research for a project

MUSIC - NOVEMBER

August-September Consumption Diary

MUSIC - AUGUST

BIOGRAPHICAL INTERLUDE

Box One

I'm one of the judges for the fiction section for the 2026 Ockham New Zealand Book Awards, which means I need to read every novel and short story collection published in 2025 that is submitted for the awards. So far I've received two boxes of books (33 books in total) and there's at least one more box to come later in the year. I'd read three books already (score). So that's going to mean I smash some of the reading targets I set at the start of the year (read 100+ books, read 20+ physical books) but means some of the other targets will be harder to achieve (like read 10 non-fiction books by female authors).

(I could tally the numbers now and see, but I'm going to keep myself in the dark till I do my 2025 reading wrap up post).

Before the first box of books to judge arrived, I got a box of books I'd bought from the THWUP sale, which was mostly just Geoff Cochranes. I started a project to re-read all his poetry collections and come up with my own Best Of list, and compare it to the contents of The Collected Geoff Cochrane (which I bought but haven't read). I didn't quite finish this process before the Ockham judging bow wave hit, so this might be a Jan 2026 project :)

BOOKS

Into India, Aztec Noon*, Acetylene*, 84-484*, Pocket Edition*, Hypnic Jerks*, The Worm in the Tequila*, The Bengal Engine's Mango Afterglow* by Geoff Cochrane (poetry, physical books, NZ) - see above.

Tin Nimbus by Geoff Cochrane (novel, physical book, NZ) - Hadn't read this before. If you've only read Geoff's poetry, this novel is pretty much what you'd imagine his novel would be like. Alcoholism. Attention to life at the level of the sentence, the word, the syllable. And the sex scene - the chutzpah! 

The Bookshop Detectives: Tea and Cake and Death by Gareth and Louise Ward (novel, audiobook, NZ) - Book Two in the series. Diminishing marginal returns.

The CIA Book Club by Charlie English (non-fiction, audiobook, UK)

Things Become Other Things: A Walking Memoir by Craig Mod (non-fiction, audiobook, US) 

Vanishing World by Sayaka Murata (novel, audiobook, Japan) - was actually written before Convenience Store Woman (terrific) and Earthlings (even better), but translated into English after those two and published in 2025. Not as strong.

Show Don't Tell by Curtis Sittenfeld (short stories, audiobook, US) - Kinda hated that a story made me empathise with Jeff Bezos. But: goooood stories.

Audition by Katie Kitamura (novel, audiobook, US) - Flesh by David Szalay is still my favourite book on the Booker Shortlist

A City on Mars by Kelly and Zach Weinersmith (non-fiction, audiobook, US) - both a superserious takedown of space colony hype and also quite funny.

Rusty Brown by Chris Ware (graphic novel, physical book, US) - a real doorstop of a book. Can be thrilling at the level of the page in terms of composition / juxtaposition, but can also feel slow and dense. Would be interested in what someone who reads a lot of graphic novels thinks.

Under the Eye of the Big Bird by Hiromi Kawakami (novel, audiobook, Japan) - think Earthlings x Never Let Me Go. 

Electric Spark: the Enigma of Muriel Spark by Frances Wilson (non-fiction, audiobook, UK) - overpromised and underdelivered in terms of revelations (though there was certainly a lot of words).

+ 8 NZ works of fiction in my judging capacity, which I will remain cagey about.

FILM & TV

Honestly, the only thing I can remember watching (besides sport), was The Truman Show with my kids (first time for them, not for me). Maybe the odd Taskmaster episode. I tried watching Season 2 of The Night Agent, got bored. Season 2 of Squid Game: ditto. Season 1 of Untamed: samesies.

Books! Give me books! Or podcasts. Or another season of Unreal (please?).

Oh, I watched the Devo documentary, and Beau is Afraid, finished Black Mirror Season 7, and the documentary series Wrestlers about OVW (that was really good). 

MUSIC - SEPTEMBER

June-July 2025 consumption diary

MUSIC - JUNE

BIOGRAPHICAL/GEOGRAPHICAL INTERLUDE

My in-laws inherited some money and took us to Japan in July. It was hot. It was humid. The ages in our party ranged from 10 to 70-mumble. I was the only one with any non-Duolingo, non-Google Translate Japanese education (School C baby!). We did a fairly standard Greatest Hits route (Tokyo, Kyoto/Osaka/Nara, Hiroshima). 

And... it was great.

BOOKS

(lotta travel / sharing rooms with snuffly kids = lotta audiobooks)

The Proof of My Innocence by Jonathan Coe (novel, audiobook, UK) - good

Playworld by Adam Ross (novel, audiobook, US) - Felt like a novel written by someone immersed in the college creative writing industrial machine who takes a long time between books. Oh wait...

Pounamu Pounamu by Witi Ihimaera (short stories, audiobook, NZ)

How to Hold a Cockroach by Matthew Maxwell (fiction?, audiobook, US) - just don't.

Careless People: a story of where I used to work by Sarah Wynn-Williams (non-fiction, audiobook, NZ)

Courting the Wild Twin by Martin Shaw (non-fiction, audiobook, UK)

Universality by Natasha Brown (novel, audiobook, UK) - on the Booker Longlist... didn't hit for me like Brown's debut, Assembly.

Flesh by David Szalay (novel, audiobook, UK/Hungary) - on the Booker Longlist... this one hit for me. V v v v v good.

The Forgotten Forest by Robert Vennell (non-fiction, audiobook, NZ)

The Wretched of the Earth by Franz Fanon (non-fiction, audiobook, France)

Pure Innocent Fun by Ira Madison III (non-fiction, audiobook, US) - contender for the most annoying book of the year.

A Beautiful Family by Jennifer Trevelyan (novel, audiobook, NZ) - not what I was expecting. Much more subdued than I presumed from the hype.

Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto by Kohei Saito (non-fiction, audiobook, Japan)

Well Met by Jen DeLuca (novel, audiobook, US) - trope-city.

The Shetland Way by Marianne Brown (non-fiction, audiobook, UK)

Perspectives by Laurent Binet (novel, audiobook, France) - a few aspects are hard to believe, but there should be more intellectual romps.

A Lack of Good Sons by Jake Arthur (poetry, physical book, NZ)

The Bookshop Detectives: Dead Girl Gone by Gareth Ward and Louise Ward (novel, audiobook, NZ)

Landfall 249 (literary journal, physical book, NZ)

Demolition of the Century by Duncan Sarkies (novel, physical book, NZ)

Star Gazers by Duncan Sarkies (novel, physical book, NZ) - check out my review for Landfall here.

MOVIES & TV

Shoresy Season 1 - Why can't I get the later seasons in NZ? Why!?

The Eternaut Season 1

Dept Q Season 1

The Bear Season 4

Welcome to Wrexham Season 4

Paddington in Peru

Gladiator 2

Sharko

Tenet*

(I'm forgetting what else I watched on the plane...)

Happy Gilmore 2

Unreal (WWE) Season 1

Aunty Donna's Coffee Cafe Season 1

MUSIC - JULY

April-May Consumption Diary

MUSIC - APRIL

BOOKS

Hine Toa: A Story of Bravery by Ngāhuia the Awekōtuku (non-fiction, audiobook, NZ)

Rejection: fiction by Tony Tulathimutte (short stories, audiobook, US)

The Axeman's Carnival by Catherine Chidgey (novel, audiobook, NZ)

The Serviceberry: an economy of gifts and abundance by Robin Wall Kimmerer (non-fiction, audiobook, US)

Pretty Ugly by Kirsty Gunn (short stories, physical book, NZ)

Middle Youth by Morgan Bach (poetry, physical book, NZ)

Biter by Claudia Jardin (poetry, physical book, NZ)

he's so MASC by Chris Tse (poetry, physical book, NZ)

The making of another major motion picture masterpiece by Tom Hanks (novel, audiobook, US)

On the calculation of volume, part one, by Solvej Balle (novel, audiobook, Denmark)

Recognising the stranger: on Palestine and narrative by Isabella Hammad (non-fiction, audiobook, UK/Palestone)

Kāwai: for such a time as this by Monty Soutar (novel, audiobook, NZ)

Ash by Louise Wallace (novel, physical book, NZ)

The Night Guest by Hildur Knutsdottir (novel, audiobook, Iceland)

The Usual Desire to Kill by Camilla Barnes (novel, audiobook, UK)

The Book of Guilt by Catherine Chidgey (novel, audiobook, NZ)

FILM & TV

Andor - Season 2 - This is my Star Wars. Lots of Better Caul Saul vs Breaking Bad comparisons to be had if I had the time to write a thinkpiece... 

Rogue One*

The Rehearsal - Season 2

The Last of Us - Season 2

Twisters

Mountainhead

Trap

A Mistake

Inside Man 2

Wicked

Young Sheldon - my daughter binged all the seasons so I caught a fair amount.

MUSIC - MAY

March consumption diary

MUSIC

I went to see MJ Lenderman and the Wind at The Loons in Lyttleton at the end of March. 

It was really great. The last 20 minutes of the set (before the encore) got a bit ambient/dragging on for my old, out-of-practice standing for four hours self. But either side of that: magic. 

Opening act, Wurld Series, was also pretty good. Lenderman described them as weird. My wife said they looked like accountants who were also in a band. I think both descriptions are slightly unfair. They were more like if Midlake was a Flying Nun band (okay, maybe not as amazing as that sounds).

The thing I forget about concerts until I am back at one is how great they are for finding solutions to writing problems or coming up with new ideas. Something about being around all those other people - strangers mostly - but so much of the experience is personal and interior. Anyway, the novel I worked on last year and I thought needed to get much fatter and overtly "important"... well, I decided during the gig that maybe it would work as a novel-in-stories, and all the "fat" might be unnecessary.

READING

Stoner by John Williams (audiobook, novel, US, 1965) -  A little late to the revival, or maybe I'm the start of the 3rd wave, but v v v v v good.

Gliff by Ali Smith (audiobook, 2024, novel, UK) - Triggering (not just in the title's similarity to my name) in the way Ali Smith can be: the slide to techno-authoritarianism shown from the other side, clear-eyed and pun-filled.

The reluctant fundamentalist by Mohsin Hamid (audiobook, novel, Pakistan/UK, 2007) - four hour audiobooks for the win. Any longer and the narrator addressing his American interlocutor framing may've become annoying. As is: great.

Several short sentences about writing by Evelyn Klinkenborg (audiobook, non-fiction, US, 2012). Loved the final section where VK dissects subpar sentences.

Liar, Liar, Lick, Spit by Emma Neale (physical book, poetry, NZ, 2024). My daughter's class had to memorise a sonnet by Shakespeare (each choosing a different one), so I learnt one of Neale's poems...The young house surgeon / jogs the tree canopied avenue (etc). I could feel my brain working in ways it hasn't for YEARS. So good.

Juice by Tim Winton (audiobook, novel, Australia, 2024). A good book in the end, marred by the fact the narrator said "cachet" instead of "cache" 90% of the time (post-apocalptic, so lots of caching)... Couldn't even be consistently wrong. (There were other mispronounciations, too. Tagging this for next time someone asks what my pet peeve is).

Going Zero by Anthony McCarten (audiobook, novel, NZ, 2023) - felt like it should have been a TV series, but also understandable why it wasn't. 

Everything I know about love by Dolly Alderton (audiobook, non-fiction, UK, 2018) - I preferred the Alderton novel I read last year. This felt a bit random brain splurge. Sucker for structure, me.

The extraordinary disappointments of Leopold Berry, Sunderworld v-01, by Ransom Riggs (audiobook, novel, US, 2024) - Not really my thing.

(For those counting along, that's 9 books, which is what I averaged in Jan/Feb... so still on pace for 108).

MOVIES & TV

Adolescence - worthy of the buzz

White Lotus - Season 3 (okay, there's still one episode to go, but)

Paradise - Season 1

Severance - Season 2

Dune Part 2

(And my daughter finished all seasons of Gilmore Girls, include A Year in the Life... She got annoyed when I fangirled over the scene where Rory is at a Shins concert. Oh that we could live in 2000-2007 again (when many would have longed for an even earlier time)).