Here’s hoping I kept good enough notes for this to be representative, not a victim of recency bias or all the other biases I’m sure I’m prone to. Though, the one about “it’s pretty boring if there’s no blood” is a pretty good and proper bias, I have to think, and one I can’t apologize for. Anyway, haven’t I usually sort of divisioned these up by . . . “Horror Category X” and then “Everything Else?” Not sure I’ll do that this time. Many, many years ago I stopped doing that with my bookshelf, I mean: there’s no Horror, Science Fiction, Fantasy, Literary, Western, “Etc,” all that anymore. Once my bookshelf went beyond a single bookcase when I was twenty-one or so, I mean, it stopped making sense. And? Felt limiting anyway. Or: Why all this segregating, dude? Who wins? What’s lost? So, I quit that. Maybe I should quit it here, too. I’ll see how these lists fall out. Still and all: it’ll be mostly horror, I’m sure. It and science fiction and popular science and paleoanthropology are the things I engage the most, and am always looking for. I strongly suspect I still keep comic books in their own category, though. But, before even getting to favorites (trying to say that instead of “best,” sort of following Neil at Talking Scared‘s lead), I should show some of my own stats:
My listening is no real surprise—been pretty much this since I was twelve, when I did that Jacob thing and imprinted on “Still the Same“:
But my favorite single SONG, according to this “Wrapped?” D-A-D’s “Rim of Hell.” This was because it’s song #1 of the playlist I wrote a novel to this summer (and because it’s on various other of my playlists) (and because I love it) (and also it’s great and perfect and timeless and amazing). But YouTube Music says my top artist for 2025 was Alabama. This decision courtesy of how it’s siphoning numbers across from the video I watch the most often (usually about 1:30am, when I’m most nostalgic), which is:
As for my favorite (other) YouTube junk, which is what I dial up for lunch about half the time I’m home—my philosophy being that lunch should take no longer than eight minutes)—at least when I can get my nose out of a book:
Oh, and, took that NYT quiz, got a good evil number:
Proud to always do all right on semicolon tests, too. Really? I may have to get a monograph on the semicolon out at some point. I’ve got Thoughts.
Anyway, I don’t track my movie etc watching on Letterboxd or my books-read on Goodreads, so: no clue about all that. And I do recall Audible doing some version of “Wrapped,” but I can no longer find it. Oh well. I also use Libro.fm and Libby and Chirp and Spotify and Netgalley and more to audiobook—also various audiobook players as I get a lot of files from the publishers—so it wouldn’t be comprehensive. I do know that the only book I read twice this year was the blue one in the first category below, though (the first time was for a blurb, the second time for an event months later).
Oh, but before we get to all the favorites, let’s first take a look at two amazing cars I saw this year:
Seriously, that El Camino about made my year. And that TA? I wrote a story about that TA. Read it to a crowd in December. Voice almost cracked. Along with my face, from smiling.
But, let’s get to . . .
FAVORITE TWO NOVELS OF THE YEAR
NOVEL I READ LATE BUT LOVED:
FAVORITE MOVIE OF THE YEAR
OTHER FAVORITE MOVIES:
MOVIES I SAW LATE, DUG:
FAVORITE NOVELLA OF THE YEAR
FAVORITE NOVELLAS I READ LATE:
(and, I just got Premee Mohamed’s The Butcher of the Forest, which I’m very excited about)
FAVORITE COMIC BOOKS
2025 was a capes & tights year for me, yeah. And, second Kraus title, too.
FAVORITE COMIC STRIP:
FAVORITE YOUNG ADULT NOVELS
(though they’re for different age-groups)
FAVORITE TELEVISION SERIES (plural) OF THE YEAR
I find myself incapable of picking one show to rule them all . . .
But I guess they’re, in order from top-right, wrapping around to start again: rural/drama; comedy/crime; post-apocalyptic; horror; crime/drama; science-fiction/horror. Cool. That about covers it all, yes? I mean, for me and my tastes.
TV SERIES I’M WATCHING LATE AND VERYMUCH DIGGING
FAVORITE TELEVISION EPISODE
Not sure where or when I caught this Law & Order ep (probably on one of the two tours I was on? I like to watch L&O in hotel rooms—it’s ALWAYS on), but it really worked for me. 3×9, “Point of View.” I don’t remember what this all/below refers to, but here’s the note I penciled down after it was over (that possessive apostrophe works . . . if you intone the sentence just right):
Lenny’s entrance, the two cops’ being forced to say what they saw, the twist in the case, coming at the psychologist, and then the end, with the nameplate and “110”
Okay, actually that AND X-Files 10×3, which I somehow don’t remember seeing back when but I put right up there with “Jose Chung’s From Outer Space” and “The Post–Modern Prometheus” (it’s a Darin Morgan one):
FAVORITE POETRY
“The Black Sheep” by Karen Finley, which, being a link, not an image, makes it seem less “main.” But, it’s Very Main.
& :
& this one, which shouldn’t be unattributed, but . . . that doesn’t mean I can fix that (all my searches fail, alas):
FAVORITE COLLECTION
No Evenson because . . . there wasn’t one this year? I am excited about reading this new story from him, though.
FAVORITE PLAY / PRODUCTION
Could not have been even one smidgen more fun:
Is a “smidgen” smaller than a “smidge?” Feels like it is, maybe?
FAVORITE COMEDY SKETCH
FAVORITE SHORT FILM
FAVORITE ALBUMS / ARTISTS
Three of them new to me, one of them new to the world, and one of them sort of a remix.
FAVORITE LINES
“Beady eyes focused on me. They looked like little gunbarrels loaded with hate.”
—Joe Lansdale, Hatchet Girls
” . . . his lips dry as Bible pages”
—Chuck Wendig, Staircase in the Woods
“Bugger who you want as long as they want it too.”
—Mike Bockoven, Come Knocking
“If he entered the wrong password twice, he was pretty sure it would blow up and send a robot from the future to kill the president, too.”
—Tod Goldberg, Only Way Out
“Everything is infinity long if you have a small enough ruler.”
—Zach Helfand in The New Yorker
And Hunter S. Thompson (not sure where this is from):
FAVORITE COLUMN / ARTICLE SERIES
FAVORITE STAND-UP SPECIAL / ROUTINE
Last thing I watched in 2025.
FAVORITE DOCUMENTARIES (new and old)
It’s weird—usually I have a stack of paleo-docs. And? I did watch a lot of them, as ever. But these two about music are the ones I seem to have penned down. Very much dug them both:
NONFICTION
NEW TO ME PODCAST I DUG
FAVORITE NEWS ITEMS
FAVORITE BLOG POST
FAVORITE VIDEO SEARCH
Anything that gets me to Efren Reyes:
MEMES & UPDATES I ENJOYED AND KEEP ON ENJOYING
CARTOON PANELS/STRIPS I KEEP COMING BACK TO BECAUSE I LIKE TO LAUGH
As for my own stuff: had two, sort of three—counting reprints, about eighty-nine—novels come out this year. I wrote one novel over summer, one novella in December—both horror, neither announced (guess the novella isn’t even accepted yet)—I had one anthology named after the story I wrote for it (first time for that), and I don’t know how many short stories and flash fictions, but: a lot. And I had a vampire novel be a NYT Book Club selection, made their “100 Notable Books of 2025,” got to #4 on their best-seller list (highest ever, for me so far), and was somehow also one of Audible’s “20 Best of 2025,” Aardvark’s Member’s Choice Winner, a Shelf Awareness Book of the Year, and . . . and on a whole lot of best of the year lists (hopefully all here). And? AND? Who’d have ever even considered this could happen?
Not bad for a vampire novel.
As for now, this moment, I’m moving to Palo Alto to teach the Stegner fellows at Stanford for a bit. Then it’s some time in Germany, then a three-week residency in Georgia, then I’m probably in Britain touring around, but am back on the trails in Colorado by mid–May, I hope. Having to miss Telluride Horror Show this year (October), alas, but will be making my way to many places in fall (though, I’m saying yes to fewer and fewer invites, alas, just to stay close to sane. was gone nearly every weekend this fall, and, turns out—factoring in podcasts and book clubs and virtual events and phone- and email- and zoom interviews—that’ll use a dude up) and a few in summer as well. Maybe I’ll remember to keep my calendar here updated, instead of updating it the day before? But maybe not, too. It’s not exactly my strength. Anyway, once I’m back in Colorado, I plan to spend all the time I can either in the saddle/on the pedals, at this keyboard right here, lost in storyland, or in the hammock in the backyard, also lost in storyland.
Storyland, man: it’s where I belong. There’s room for all of us in there, too. I’ll leave a light on for you. Don’t trust me, though. I also like to say scary stuff, and then turn that light off.
Stay golden, y’all,
