My picks for 2025

Across all formats except for podcasting.

As a student, it took me a long time (probably too long) to realize why articles like “Here’s what X scholar was reading” were valuable. In general, I talk about myself very carefully and so don’t go out of my way to share what I’m consuming.

But I’m trying to change that, and I was lucky to read/watch/hear/play a lot of great stuff this year! Here’s what stood out.

Enter the Void (Movie, 2010) — Not unexpectedly, I’ve been checking out a lot of psychedelic content. This movie is an attempt to link DMT with the experience of dying. It’s unlike anything I’ve seen. You have to been in the right mood for it—if the opening titles put you off, maybe don’t watch the rest—but it’s incredible.

Golden Holocaust (book, 2011) / The Cigarette Century (book, 2007) — I don’t think you can understand the present moment in society without a clear understanding of the history of addiction and its weaponization. It’s strange to say given how many people they’ve killed (and 6 trillion cigarettes are still made every year!), but
these are just a prelude to what we’re currently witnessing.

Anuja (short film, 2024) — Beautiful. The ending is a little ambiguous but it’s incredibly affective.

Judith Grisel, Never Enough: The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction (book, 2019) — If you are going to read one book about addiction, it should be this one. It goes over the neuroscience in ways that nonspecialists like myself can understand and it goes through the pharmacology of all the various popular substances (FDA approved
and not). The author is a former addict and this makes the book even better.

Dara Horn, One Little Goat: A Passover Catastrophe (graphic novel, 2025) — This is a good introduction to Dara Horn’s thought as a whole, including the centrality of Jewish persecution and memory. A short and sweet(?) read for Pesach.

Andy Letcher, Shroom: A Cultural History of the Magic Mushroom (book, 2006) — It’s surprising that there are not more histories of the magic mushroom, which played second fiddle to LSD in the first psychedelic renaissance but it is more popular in the second. This one in particular is helpful in understanding how a ritual experience became secularized and whether that’s a good thing.

What Happened, Miss Simone? (documentary, 2015) — This made me cry.

Paths of Glory / Bridge on the River Kwai / Waterloo (movies, 1957 / 1957 / 1970) — I watched a lot of war movies this year? Paths of Glory is about WWI and contains the best depictions I have ever seen of what it means to be afraid to die. Bridge on the River Kwai contains Alec Guinness not being a superhero; he’s incredible and now I understand why he thought Star Wars was beneath him. Waterloo is a straight up recreation of a 19th century battle with 17,000 extra (the most of any movie!) and nothing like it will ever be made ever again.

Edel Rodriguez, Worm: A Cuban American Odyssey (graphic novel 2023) — A terrifying depiction of Castro’s brutality and trying to make a life in America. Uncomfortably familiar.

Ryan North, Warp Your Own Way / Jason Shiga, The Beyond (2025 and 2023)— This is the year that I learned choose-your-own-adventure stories could be interesting. Now I have to see if I can write my own effectively…

Adrian Tchaikovsky, Shroud (novel, 2025) — Tchaikovsky specializes in all the different ways that life and consciousness can manifest. This isn’t necessarily his best work — I think Children of Time is stronger, though the sequels are not — but it’s very good.

Hollywoodism: Jews, Movies and the American Dream (documentary, 1998) — I visited LA for the first time this year and I’m visiting at least two more next year (also I watched The Studio) so I got curious about Hollywood’s Jewishness. This movie maybe overstates the case, but the idea of the American Dream as a quintessentially outsider idea is really interesting. Ironically, I learned afterward that not only is the director Jewish but I was at his Shabbos table numerous time as a kid.

Fielding’s Hollow (2025) — My very first LARP. Unlike anything I’ve ever done, and from what I can tell unlike any other LARP. Still processing, but recommended.

City of Six Moons (board game, 2024) — A game that presents as a found object recovered from an alien civilization. The goal is to figure out how to play. Very much like Talmud. Felt like it was made just for me.

Guy Delisle, Jerusalem / Muybridge (graphic novels, 2011 and 2025) — These are very different books, but Delisle is consistently great. In Jerusalem (documenting a year in Israel/Palestine) he does a lot by trying not to come to a conclusion; he is listening and talking to everyone, even though his biases are clear. In Muybridge he gets at the incredible feeling of being able to capture something too fast for the eye to behold. Both worth reading.

Zoe Thorogood, It’s Lonely at the Centre of the Earth (graphic novel, 2025) — This was a year with a lot of mental health struggles for me, and Thorogood captures that struggle in ways that I found personally very meaningful.

I.F. Clarke, The Pattern of Expectation 1644–2001 (book, 1979) — I taught a course at Gratz College this year about Jewish technoculture (the relationship between Jewish history and the history of technology) and this book felt like a missing puzzle piece for understanding the last 150 years. A book about how we’ve thought about the future. Not new, but very much still worth reading.

F.D. Signifier’s YouTube channel — I’m not the audience for this year, but maybe I am? As an aspiring YouTube creator, I appreciate the way he unpacks popular Black artists in a way that is less visible to non-Black consumers or people who don’t follow hiphop so closely. Unpretentious and very wise.

Gabor Mate, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts (book, 2008) — I listened to this on a long drive in the deserts of Utah. Heart-wrenching portraits of people suffering through addiction and trauma. The heights of human cruelty and the heights of human compassion.

Mark Lattanzi, Squiggly Lines: Map and Compass Navigation in Adventure Races and Rogaines (book, 2020) — I went orienteering with my kid for the first time this year. It was a great experience until we walked straight into a lake. It doesn’t seem like you’d need a book for this, but it is helpful to have some grounding (ha). This book and a $5 compass will take you a long way.

Pedro Martin, Mexikid (graphic novel, 2023) — I read a lot of immigrant memoirs this year. The entire family loved this one. It is basically perfect.

Despelote (video game, 2025) — A tiny little story about a kid witnessing Ecuador propelled onto the world stage after qualifying for the 2002 FIFA World Cup. A good use of the format to make something touching.

Osamu Tezuka, The Buddha (graphic novel, 1972–1983) — The last great thing I read this year was a true masterpiece. Eight volumes! A kind of midrashic account of the life of the Buddha, willing to move slowly enough that Siddhartha does not need to be center stage. What would it look like to do something similar for a Jewish story?

Finally—this is the first year that Jello Menorah has had a sponsorship option. Thank you to those of you who have contributed to the site! It means a lot to me. See you all next year.