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