Everything I’ve ever recommended here, ranked (definitively)
I swear this is the last time I’m doing this
When I started this blog, I didn’t have any big plans. I thought maybe I could furnish the internet with a decent essay every month or so, and maybe tell people to buy my books while I was at it. I did have one decent idea that’s stuck around, though: maybe I could…y’know…recommend stuff.
I’m obviously under no impression that I invented the idea of recommending stuff. “The Recommendation” (in its various incarnations) has become an increasingly popular feature in blogs and podcasts, which makes sense—after all, the Information Age has buried us all under a pile of Content™️ that’s darn near impossible to sort through on our own. My own version (“Stuff I’ve been enjoying lately”) has become one of my favorite things to write here, as well—I know that it’s the snark that gets the clicks and new subscribers, sadly (or maybe fortunately, since I’m a bottomless font of snark?), but I’d always much rather write something positive, and maybe even nudge readers toward something that will improve their lives a little.
There’s really been no rhyme or reason to what I’ve recommended; it’s just a question of “What am I excited to tell people about this month?”—or, failing that, just “What have I been grooving to?”1 If I ever had trouble choosing between alternatives, I generally went with whatever was more recent, literary, obscure, and/or horror-adjacent…but there are no real rules around here.
But this month marks my Substack’s third anniversary,2 so I thought I’d take a look back at all thirty-six of my recommendations so far—y’know, for posterity, or else for people who are new to the blog and are looking for something to read or watch or whatever. I’ve ranked them worst-to-best, written a few more words on each, and rated them all on my patented Regret-O-Meter™️, to indicate how much I wish I hadn’t recommended each one:
How much do I regret undertaking this list (which, as usual, was ten times as much work as I expected)? I’ll let you take a guess.
List commences after the break:
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36. Life between Seconds
(2022 novel by Douglas Weissman)
It’s happened twice that I recommended a book before I’d actually finished reading it…and both times, it didn’t end well (check #35 for another example!). I really wanted to like Life between Seconds, because it seemed like one of those literary novels that only smart people like—but more importantly, it had one of the funniest jokes I’ve ever read in a book (it’s really hard to explain it out of context, but in brief: there’s this surly teddy bear, and there’s a throwaway line about how the heart on his hand that says “Try me” might be more of a threat than an invitation). That was enough to sell me on the book, but unfortunately, it came early on, and nothing else about LbS was worth writing home about.
Aside from that joke and a bit of striking, surreal imagery, there’s not much to recommend Weissman’s book. It’s just a lot of typical look-Mom-I-have-an-MFA stuff: an obvious self-insert character, a couple of manic pixie dreamgirls, and a conviction that the universe revolves around the hangups of middle-class white guys. Weissman’s not a bad writer, but I hope he digs a little deeper for his future projects.
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
I was this close to recommending Cat Robot’s song “I Am Stardust” (I eventually linked to it here, but…it deserved better). It’s a song about detransitioning, though, and I was still mostly in the TERF closet back then. I guess I’m pretty out now, though, so…give a listen to “Stardust”!
⬅️ What I said back then
35. Tom Finder
(2003 novel by Martine Leavitt)
Martine Leavitt wrote one of my favorite novels of all time (Calvin, which you’ll find at #2 below!), so I was really hoping to love this YA novel of life on the streets, but…sadly, this book was a slog. I actually said as much in my recommendation, which was less “You have to read this book!” and more “At least I have something to read over Christmas break.”
Tom Finder is the story of a homeless amnesiac kid in Calgary trying to find his parents. There are a couple of moments that stick out in my mind, but I honestly could not tell you whether the kid ends up finding them or not, which probably tells you how much of an impression this book made on me. Fortunately, Leavitt has sharpened her skills with plot and character considerably in the intervening decades.
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
I remember bouncing back and forth between this one and J. R. R. Tolkien’s The Two Towers, which, again, I really wanted to like? Can someone explain to me how writing as dry and slow as Tolkien’s managed to change the world?
I’ll finish reading The Lord of the Rings someday, I promise.
⬅️ What I said back then
34. Wars in a Wonderland
(2021 album by Neoni)
So…here’s the thing. I love Neoni (a goth-flavored singer-songwriter sister act from Utah), but I think Wars in a Wonderland might actually represent their worst work? It’s not bad, but I also couldn’t hum a single bar from it.
This was more a case of me wanting to recommend an artist, and then just defaulting to their latest release. I do recommend you check out Neoni, assuming “goth-flavored singer-songwriter sister act” sounds like your kind of thing, but I wouldn’t start with Wonderland.
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
Neoni wasn’t a bad choice, but I should have pushed one of their singles instead of this album. “Champion” or “Ghost Town” are good places to start.
⬅️ What I said back then
33. If This Book Exists, You’re in the Wrong Universe
(2022 novel by Jason Pargin)
I’ve been kind of hard on Jason Pargin in this newsletter, a couple of times now, but the truth is he’s one of my primary inspirations. He manages to be funny, and scary, and wise, all at the same time, and he does so while writing books that are generally pretty hard to put down. While I do think the quality of his novels has slipped in recent years, I am occasionally pleasantly surprised by how readable some of them are—which is why I ended up recommending this one.
If This Book Exists is the fourth book in the John Dies at the End series, which blends Lovecraftian horror with lowbrow dudebro humor. For my money, the series—at least initially—also managed to make some astute observations about the human condition along the way—I got to the end of John Dies at the End and This Book Is Full of Spiders feeling like I’d learned something about myself. But…eh. None of Pargin’s novels have made me feel that way since.
If This Book Exists managed to stake out that middle ground where it was far from brilliant but still kept me turning the pages. Nothing transcendent, but I didn’t have to drag myself across the finish line like I did with Pargin’s previous novel, Zoey Punches the Future in the Dick. A solid “meh,” but on the up end of “meh.”
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
I think I started Paul Tremblay’s The Pallbearers Club around the same time. It didn’t grab me as quickly, but it’s probably a better novel.
⬅️ What I said back then
32. I Don’t Know What I’m Doing
(2022 album by Nerina Pallot)
True story: British singer-songwriter Nerina Pallot’s 2006 album Fires is one of my all-time favorite albums—one of those albums where every song is unforgettable. And I sort of feel like I’ve been chasing the dragon ever since I first heard it, always hoping that each of her subsequent albums would hit the same heights for me.
Occasionally, I’ve been able to psych myself up into thinking one of the new ones was just as good—which I absolutely did with I Don’t Know What I’m Doing—only to realize, after giving it a dozen spins or so, that I’d rather just be listening to Fires for the umpteen-billionth time.
That’s sort of what happened here. I was excited to see that Fires had finally made its way to Spotify, and I was excited to see that Pallot had a new album out, so I recommended the new one, but…really, you ought to just listen to Fires. She’ll never match its heights, which suggests that she did pick the correct title for this new album.
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
Aside from Fires, I remember reading Dostoyevsky’s Notes from the Underground around the same time. As someone’s who’s a perpetual surly teenager, I feel like I should have liked that one more than I did…but I honestly thought it was just-okay.
⬅️ What I said back then
31. Spaceman
(2024 film by Johan Renck)
Weird facts about me: (1) I think Freudianism is obvious nonsense; (2) I can’t get enough of introspective Freudian stories.
Spaceman is the sort of weirdo Freudian genre picture I love despite myself, starring Adam Sandler as a Czech cosmonaut who encounters a giant talking spider who helps him work out his daddy and wifey issues. I’m not sure the second half of this film quite lives up to the first, but it’s mesmerizing for at least an hour or so.
Why am I so drawn to stuff like this? Maybe because I think the whole universe is just a metaphor for isolation and regret. (And am I wrong?)
Regret-O-Meter™️
What I should have recommended instead:
No lie: I almost recommended Dinnerly meal kits instead of Spaceman—they’ve made my evenings so much easier, and even my kids can cook them! No, this isn’t sponsored content! What are you talking about? Nonchalant chuckle.
⬅️ What I said back then
30. The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill
(2021–22 podcast by Mike Cosper)
The time I recommended this show feels like a lifetime ago now, which isn’t to say that it’s a bad show—I remember it being great—just that I struggle to imagine myself taking the time to listen to it now.
The Rise and Fall of Mars Hill was an NPR-style podcast produced by Christianity Today that tracked the collapse of Pastor Mark Driscoll’s Seattle-area megachurch Mars Hill. It was probably a story that needed to be told, but in my mind now it’s hopelessly associated with the sort of hand-wringing that’s become synonymous with “elite” evangelical Christianity ever since Trump won the 2016 election. There’s no doubt much to wring hands about—American evangelicalism contains within it the seeds of its own destruction, with its obsession with fads and charisma. But you can only wring your hands for so long before it starts to feel like emotional masturbation.
Regret-O-Meter™️
What I should have recommended instead:
What I was really excited about at the time was the movie Dear Evan Hansen (yes, I’m aware that I’m the only human who enjoyed that movie), but it would have been weird to recommend that one, since I had already written a 1,000+-word review of it. The post that resulted, though—a long review of Evan Hansen followed by a short recommend for Mars Hill—actually feels like an encapsulation of my evolving thinking at the time. I’m tired of wringing my hands over how sick American Christianity is; can we talk about how sick everything is?
⬅️ What I wrote back then
29. His House
(2020 film by Remi Weekes)
One of what I’m sure are hundreds of gems buried under all the dreck on Netflix, His House is a harrowing horror movie that’s also the story of a couple of desperate refugees doing what they have to do to survive. I know it’s suddenly become trendy to roll your eyes at “prestige horror,” but I dunno, I feel like horror movies that are smart are generally preferable to horror movies that are dumb. And even if you disagree, I feel like there’s still room for both?
His House is deeply terrifying, tragic, and hopeful. Not too many movies have made me both jump and cry, but this is one of them.
Regret-O-Meter™️
What I should have recommended instead:
I almost recommended the 2016 Fox series The Exorcist instead. His House was the right choice, but The Exorcist is worth checking out as well.
⬅️ What I wrote back then
28. What to Miss When
(2021 poetry collection by Leigh Stein)
This was the first thing I ever recommended here, and in retrospect I probably wouldn’t do it again—not because I don’t love this book (I do!), but because readers couldn’t buy it back when I recommended it. Stein’s publicist had sent me an advanced copy because she was coming on my podcast, so recommending it may have been a bit of a humblebrag: Look at me, I am a cool person who gets slightly famous people to come on his podcast and send him not-yet-published books!
Of course, I no longer have a podcast, and no one sends me ARCs anymore, so these days I’m not fooling anyone. But I’ll say this: If the idea of funny free-verse poetry about being stuck in your apartment for all of 2020 appeals to you, pick up this book! You won’t regret it. It’s a fun, breezy read.
Regret-O-Meter™️
What I should have recommended instead:
I probably should have just recommended Stein’s satirical novel Self Care. That was what originally caught my attention and spurred me to invite her on the show in the first place. I also suspect a funny novel about social media hypocrisy has a wider appeal than a collection of “plague poetry.”
⬅️ What I wrote back then
27. Love, Death, + Robots (season 2)
(2021 TV series by Tim Miller)
Did you know that those old Heavy Metal movies from the 1970s and ’90s got a quasi-reboot? It’s this weird Netflix anthology show. And it’s a ton of fun! Not all of the shorts are amazing, but some of the best sci-fi and horror animation that’s happening is happening here.
It’s also pretty juvenile at times, but I guess you have to take the good with the bad, right?
Regret-O-Meter™️
What I probably should have recommended instead:
I remember really enjoying the video game Oceanhorn 2 around the same time. I also never finished it, though, so maybe it wasn’t that great?
Then again, I was also trying to play it on an iPad with the touchscreen controls, so maybe that one’s on me.
⬅️ What I wrote back then
26. Shasta (Carrie’s Song)
(2004 song by Vienna Teng)
If I had a nickel for every time someone wrote and recorded a piano rock song about a trip to an abortion clinic, I’d have…two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice?
I was actually really grateful when this came across my radar while I was working on my piece for August 2022, because before that I was tapped out of stuff to recommend. Then I heard “Shasta,” with its bouncy piano, vaguely Spanish horns, and compelling story, and I realized it was perfect. Worth a listen, if you’ve got three minutes.
Regret-O-Meter™️
What I should have recommended instead:
As I said, I was pretty stuck for something to recommend till I found this song. At the time, I had been reading through Reflections on a Mountain Lake, a collection of lectures by Buddhist nun Tenzin Palmo—and while I wasn’t loving it, I thought maaaybe I could recommend it as an excuse to give a shout-out to her official biography, Cave in the Snow, which I had loved (but had finished months ago, so it felt like old news). I dunno, the whole thing all feels weirdly connected, since Vienna Teng actually co-wrote an entire musical about the Buddha (it’s called The Fourth Messenger, and it’s awful), and Tenzin Palmo keeps referencing abortion as evidence of the sexual decadence of the West in her lectures (it’s always interesting to hear a perspective on this stuff from someone whose brain hasn’t been poisoned by the American culture wars). It’s all very Zen, or Vajrayana, or whatever.
⬅️ What I wrote back then
25. Tomb Raider I•II•III Remastered
(2024 video game by David Ballard)
I had thrown in my lot with the Nintendo 64 in the nineties (boy did I bet on the wrong horse), so I never got to try the original Tomb Raider back when it was a thing (aside from a demo I managed to install on my very slow Windows PC that ran at about five frames a second). So when they announced a full remake for Nintendo Switch et. al., I had to give it a shot—and I wasn’t disappointed.
Remember back when 3D gaming was new and exciting? When games were actually fun? When you could just buy a game and play it through to the end? When not everything had to be online and designed to addict you and milk you for cash forever? Yeah, neither do I. Maybe Pepperidge Farm does or something.
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
I remember being torn three ways between this game, YouTuber Lady Decade’s weird new quasi-political rants, and this filmed version of a 2021 West End production of Cole Porter’s classic 1934 musical Anything Goes. I was in a weird place that month.
⬅️ What I wrote back then
24. Mean Girls
(2024 film by Samantha Jayne and Arturo Perez, Jr.)
I know this one was controversial, but I kind of loved it, I think?
People were obviously extremely attached to the original film, and some people just really hate musicals (we call those people “dead inside”), and I’m sure this version didn’t do itself a lot of favors by trying to hide the fact that it was a musical in its marketing. And the end product felt a little Spark-Notes-y, seeing as it had to cram a nearly-three-hour play into a two-hour movie (a common problem). I walked out of the theater feeling slightly disappointed, but my appreciation for this film has really grown as I’ve gotten further from it. It’s wildly inventive visually (and does a great job distinguishing itself from the original film that way), and while the casting isn’t perfect, Reneé Rapp and Auliʻi Cravalho both deliver unforgettable performances here. I’d 100% rewatch this, and it would be 90% unironic.
It was also, for the record, a modest box office success, nearly tripling its production budget! I’m calling it: 2024 is the Year of the Musical. You can laugh at me now, and then admit that I was right when Joker: Folie à Deux makes a bajillion dollars.3
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
This has been a weird year for me so far, in that I’ve barely enjoyed any of the books I’ve picked up, but I’ve been finding great movies to watch. I watched the recent Oscar winner American Fiction around the same time, and I finally got around to the 2021 Japanese classic Drive My Car shortly thereafter. Both of them blew me away, and you all probably would have respected me more if I’d picked either one, but…I’m here for the glitz, not the prestige.
⬅️ What I wrote back then
23. Everybody Lies
(2023 song by Emma Blackery)
I love Emma Blackery’s music, but I’ve always sort of wondered who it was for. She seems to be seeking out a middle ground between 2020s influencer-pop and late-’70s post-punk, which seems to be working for her, which is great, but I don’t know who besides me is listening to it.
Anyway, this song came across my radar, and I found it (1) painfully on-the-nose, but also (2) the perfect encapsulation of my feelings about things like social media and commercial news. Stop plugging yourself into things whose only purpose is to stress you out and sell you stuff you don’t need, my dudes.
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
I was really enjoying old Man-Thing comics from the 1970s at the time. If you haven’t read those, you should.
⬅️ What I wrote back then
22. The Good Witch
(2023 album by Maisie Peters)
Man, how long has it been since the music album was a relevant art form?
I’m of the generation for whom music cost around twenty bucks an hour—if you were lucky, you could afford maybe one new CD a month, and that CD better be good. Then you would be stuck spinning the music you’d bought, over and over (or listening to the radio, if you were a sheeple), and if the album was actually decent, it could take over your life for a while. (Get off my lawn, or whatever.)
I haven’t had that experience of an album taking over my life in…gosh, maybe a decade? Online music just doesn’t reward thoughtfully put-together LPs. But Brit singer-songwriter Maisie Peters’s latest album really is that, for me, at least. This disc was synonymous with my summer of 2023.
Regret-O-Meter™️
What I should have recommended instead:
I think I was reading Plato’s Republic around the same time. Would you have respected me more if I’d chosen that one?
⬅️ What I wrote back then
21. Dirty Money
(2018 song by EllaHarp)
I might be alone in this, but man, I love it when unique instruments show up in surprising places.
EllaHarp, as an artist and a human, comes across as far cooler than I will ever be, playing her laidback folk-rock on miniature banjos and harps that she builds herself. Obviously, the word “artisan” has been thrown around to an absurd degree this century (usually in service of selling bread that looks like it’s been dragged through the mud, for some reason), but if it ever applied to anyone, it applies to Ella.
I’m also a sucker for the twelve-bar blues. So this song, like Ella’s harps, was custom-made just for me. Or her. Or…whatever.
Regret-O-Meter™️
What I should have recommended instead:
I remember enjoying the Last of Us TV series around the same time…but like every other prestige TV drama, it broke my heart in the end.
⬅️ What I said back then
20. Hadestown
(2006 stage musical by Anaïs Mitchell)
It always takes me a while to give something a chance if I think its name is dumb (for instance, I guess a lot of people like System of a Down and Breaking Bad, but I’ve never given them a fair shake, and probably never will). You can thank Spotify, though, for cycling the song “Why We Build the Wall” into my listening queue and convincing me to give this Broadway hit with a pretty dumb name a try. What a roller coaster of sweet romance, dark tragedy, and Dixieland jazz, though. I still haven’t had a chance to see it performed, but I’ve completely worn out the cast recording.
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
I think I made the right choice here, but at the time there were a couple of really funny YouTube videos I found myself rewatching over and over: this one by Ryan George (of Pitch Meeting fame) about how animals got their names, and this one by CGP Grey “ranking” US state flags. They’re both great—the sort of videos that you can watch a dozen times and still not catch all the jokes.
⬅️ What I said back then
19. How Star Wars Conquered the Universe: The Past, Present, and Future of a Multibillion Dollar Franchise
(2014 book by Chris Taylor)
I once had a friend who described herself as “a fanboy of fanboys,” and I can identify with that descriptor—I would never join a “fandom,” but I’m fascinated they exist.
I’m not the world’s hugest Star Wars fan, either (the original trilogy was pretty good; The Last Jedi was a masterpiece, and if you disagree you are dumb; I couldn’t care less about the rest of it), but the question of how one idea of millions goes from a germ in one guy’s head to a global phenomenon is mind-blowing to think about.
That’s what How Star Wars Conquered the Universe is, at its best: It wisely avoids fanboying out (most of the time) and sticks to the fundamental journalistic questions of where all this stuff came from, why it got so big, and where it’s headed. I don’t think Taylor could have foreseen the vast graveyard of mediocre Disney+ series, but who among us could have?
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
I remember enjoying Lee Drutman’s book Breaking the Two-Party Doom Loop: The Case for Multiparty Democracy in America around the same time. But normal politics is boring, and space politics is awesome.
⬅️ What I said back then
18. The Catcher in the Rye
(1951 novel by J. D. Salinger)
The closest thing to a bonafide classic I’ve ever picked here, which might say something about me, I guess?
My impression of this one is that people either love it or hate it. Whether they’re adolescent males at the time they read it seems to be a big factor in which way they go, but I read it for the first time at age thirty-eight and unironically loved it. Maybe that’s just confirmation that I’m somehow getting more juvenile as I age, but this book managed to give me the only thing I ever really want out of fiction: it allowed me to spend a few days in the head of an interesting person.
Also comes in handy it you’re thinking about shooting John Lennon.4
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
Touching grass. It was June, I shouldn’t have been inside reading a book.
⬅️ What I said back then
17. J. J. McCollough
(YouTuber)
This is the only time I’ve recommended person and not a work, but that’s the headspace I was in at the time. I have a really vivid memory of cleaning my house, handing out Halloween candy, and mainlining J. J.’s videos while my kids were out trick-or-treating, and it might be one of the best evenings of my life (not really, but it was pleasant).
How do I describe J. J.? He started his career writing fairly serious political commentary for outlets like the Washington Post and The National Review, mainly on Canadian issues; by the time I had discovered him, though, he had reinvented himself as a quirky YouTube personality much more interested in history and culture than in political issues per se. I think I discovered him through a video in which he meticulously breaks down the “Steamed Hams” sketch from The Simpsons, but I stuck around for his explanations of Canadian politics and history.
A self-identified gay conservative, McCollough comes across as frequently alienated by the weird turn North American politics have taken in the last decade, and I identify with him pretty hard on that front (though maybe from the opposite direction). In some small sense, I aspire to do the sort of thing here that he’s done on YouTube: create a space for burnt-out people to talk about things other than politics.
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
I still think about this Slate article once a week or so.
⬅️ What I said back then
16. Wonka
(2023 film by Paul King)
What’s funny about Wonka is that I initially had less than zero interest in it. I don’t need everything to be a Cinematic Universe™️, and I wasn’t wondering at all what Willy Wonka was up to prior to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The only reason I saw this movie was because (1) it was my birthday and I felt like going to the movies, and (2) I had to pick a movie my kids could tag along to.
When the end credits rolled on Wonka, though, I looked at my wife and said, “Oh my gosh, I loved that movie.” Then I spent the rest of the day telling everyone who called me to wish me a happy birthday that they had to see it. This movie caught me completely by surprise, and I couldn’t think of a better way to start my year.
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
I remember enjoying the 2020 horror flick The Invisible Man quite a bit around the same time. What was the deal with that thing? I guess it was one of the rats that jumped off the sinking ship of the Universal Dark Universe™️,5 which makes the fact that it turned out pretty good even more amazing.
⬅️ What I said back then
15. The Geography of Lost Things
(2018 novel by Jessica Brody)
I only picked this one up because of Brody’s own pitch for it in the pages of her book Save the Cat! Writes a Novel: The Last Book on Novel Writing You’ll Ever Need, and I admit that it took it a while to grab me. In the end, though, I found it irresistible—it was a sweet, sunny teen romance set on the highways of the West Coast and featuring a colorful cast of weirdos. Who wouldn’t want to read that?
If it had just been that, though, I probably would have forgotten it the moment I got to the end. Fortunately, Geography reaches for the proverbial brass ring by mining the depths of the main character’s relationship with her estranged father in a way that caught me completely off-guard. I’m not crying. You’re crying.
Regret-O-Meter™️":
What I should have recommended instead:
At the time, I was really excited about Michael Finkel’s book The Stranger in the Woods: The Extraordinary Story of the Last True Hermit, but I’d already written 2,000 words on it, so.
⬅️ What I said back then
14: Howard the Duck: The Complete Collection, Vol. 1
(2015 comics collection by Steve Gerber)
I’d had “read some Howard the Duck” on my to-do list for years, but I might have gotten around to it sooner if I’d known how much I was going to love it. I still can’t tell you exactly why I loved it, though—there’s a je ne sais quois about these comics that kept me coming back even when they seemed kind of stupid.
Howard creator Steve Gerber famously said that the joke of Howard was that there wasn’t a joke, and I think that’s the best way of putting it. This was the late ’70s; everyone was coming to terms with the fact that the world was a bad joke that didn’t mean anything. And in 2023, I was in the exact same headspace. This stuff was like water in the desert to me.
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
At the time I was really excited about streaming series (serieses?) Severance and Mrs. Davis, but Severance felt like old news by then, and I’d already written 2,000 words about Mrs. Davis. That said, though, Mrs. Davis is in the running for my favorite thing of all time, so if you haven’t watched it, you should.
⬅️ What I wrote back then
13. The End of the World Is Flat
(2021 novel by Simon Edge)
Humorist Edge’s satire of the UK’s trans debate, and particularly the absurdities of Stonewall’s doings: The story of a charity that, having achieved its purpose, has to find a new purpose fast so they all get to keep their jobs. And why devote themselves to a worthy cause when they can make everyone believe a bunch of obvious nonsense, like “If you think the world is round, you’re racist”?
Read this one while I was on vacation in Miami and it was gray and 30° out, and it ended up being the one sunny spot on the trip. A very funny, very hard-to-put-down book.
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
I was enjoying Ovid’s Metamorphoses around the same time. That book was a trip, man. (The other kind of trip, I mean.)
⬅️ What I wrote back then
12. Crypt of the NecroDancer
(2015 video game by Ryan Clark)
When I recommended this one, I was in an extremely weird place. I was in the process of signing with my agent—basically the last time I had anything resembling good news about my career!—and was unable to focus long enough to write, or read, or even watch anything. What do you do when you’re that addled? Play a roguelike rhythm game, of course.
If those words mean nothing to you: (1) A “roguelike” is a dungeon-crawler that’s different every time, with randomized room and item placement, and (2) a rhythm game is where you have to tap the buttons in time with the music. Putting them together, though? Inspired. Like Moutain Dew and Doritos. Or like playing video games and never leaving the house.
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
I was also playing a lot of Rocket League at the time. Yeah, I’m #basic.
⬅️ What I wrote back then
11. The Devil Went Down to Georgia
(2023 song cover by Mia x Ally)
So many people seem to hate the bagpipes, but I defy you to watch Ally the Piper play them—particularly when backed up by violinist Mia Asano—and continue to hate them. Not only does she get an amazing sound out of them, she looks incredibly cool doing so.
And while we all can agree that “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” is one of the greatest country songs of all time, it definitely needed more bagpipes. Guitars are boring.
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
You know what came out around the same time and was shockingly good? That new, direct-to-Hulu season of Futurama. But we all know it can’t compare to country bagpipes.
⬅️ What I wrote back then
10. Now It’s Dark
(2023 short story collection by Lynda E. Rucker)
Going on and on about my love for Lynda Rucker’s writing has become slightly awkward for me, since Rucker actually reads this blog somewhat regularly now—which, to be clear, I’m glad for (hi, Lynda). It’s probably enough to say that her book You’ll Know When You Get There (#1 below) singlehandedly revived my love for horror fiction and inspired me to keep writing weird literary stuff.
I was about ten months late to realizing this new collection existed, but as soon as I saw it was a thing, I ordered it and tore through it in a few days. This is stuff that’s perfect for a late fall night, so I’m gonna say I read it at the right time of year.
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
Well, nothing, obviously, but I remember enjoying another horror short story collection around the same time—namely Jordan Peele’s Out There Screaming: An Anthology of New Black Horror.
⬅️ What I wrote back then
9. American Pope
(2021 album by Mandala)
Wouldn’t have even heard of this one if Mandala hadn’t reached out to me, but I’m so glad he did. I invited him on my now-defunct podcast to talk about his evolving views on the Joker (no lie, that’s what we talked about), but I put off listening to the album until the morning before we recorded the show. I’m always worried to listen to stuff by people I’ll have to meet—what if I don’t like it?
When I got to the end of the disc, though, I said, “That was really good—I think I’ll listen again.” And I’ve been coming back to it ever since. I’m sure “Catholic hiphop” sounds awful to a lot of potential listeners, but I’d encourage you to give it a chance. There’s a raw honesty here that’s infectious (along with some sick beats).
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
I was actually torn between this one and a couple of recent films at the time: Joel Cohen’s The Tragedy of Macbeth and Chris White’s Christian metal–themed romcom Electric Jesus. Guess I could have done a Christian music twofer, but I didn’t (that also would have left Macbeth out, which…everyone already knew about Macbeth, right?). I did have White on my podcast, though, so there’s that.
⬅️ What I wrote back then
8. The Nineties: A Book
(2022 essay collection by Chuck Klosterman)
Sometimes the best things are the ones that catch you the most by surprise. I’d heard so many insufferable people singing the praises of Klosterman that I assumed he must be insufferable as well (confession: there is a good chance that I am also insufferable). And maybe he is, but if so, this book masked it quite well.
The Nineties turned out to be a collection of really informative and insightful observations about the decade that comprised most of my childhood, and I have to admit that it made me laugh out loud on multiple occasions. It’s possible it just hit me at the right moment, but it was impossible to put down.
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
I actually came really close to recommending linguist John McWhorter’s book Nine Nasty Words: English in the Gutter—Now, Then, and Forever instead. This was a really great month for my nonfiction reading.
⬅️ What I wrote back then
7. Anti-Majestic Cosmic Horseshit
(2024 essay by Some Guy)
Like many who lived through the New Atheist Apocalypse of the early 2000s, I’m thoroughly sick of debating the existence of God—particularly since I think St. Thomas Aquinas got it right when he observed it’s a category error to talk about whether God “exists” in the same sense that a rock or a tree or Dr. Phil exist. Contingent existence is an entirely different question from essential existence.
Some Guy (that is his pen name, sorry) understands that, though, since he—as he tells it, at least—has seen the veil of contingent existence torn back and met God face-to-face. I have no particular reason to believe this story, aside from the very real change it seems to have wrought in him, but even if he’s invented all of it, it’s a hell of a story, and well worth your time.
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
I was late to the party on this one (in the sense that I didn’t get around to watching it until after it was canceled), but I was really enjoying AppleTV+’s animated musical sitcom Central Park around the same time. It’s from the same guys as Bob’s Burgers, so if you’re a fan of that one, I’d recommend checking it out. There’s three solid seasons (and a lot of great songs!) to enjoy.
⬅️ What I wrote back then
6. Colossal
(2016 film by Nacho Vigalondo)
Finally, someone combined an indie drama about recovering from alcoholism with a kaiju monster movie!
If you follow me, you know I live for weird stuff like this, and this movie really works, due more to the spellbinding performances of Anne Hathaway and Jason Sudeikis than to its admittedly spotty script. There were moments in Colossal that made me say, “That’s kinda dumb,” but it’s also lived rent-free in my head since I first watched it, which says a lot.
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
I almost recommended The Lost City instead. I don’t know if anyone remembers that one (seemed like it was in and out of theaters pretty fast), but it was a very funny pastiche of Romancing the Stone with Sandra Bullock as a failed-academic-turned-reluctant-romance-novelist and Channing Tatum as her himbo cover model. It was a great time at the movies.
⬅️ What I wrote back then
5. The Internet Is Already Over
(2022 essay by Sam Kriss)
A lot of us have been trying to deny this for a while, but it’s getting increasingly hard to do so: The internet is dead. The internet remains dead. And we have killed it. How shall we comfort ourselves, we murderers of murderers?
The buzzword these days is “enshittification” (which, like every other buzzword in history, has already been stretched far, far beyond its original definition, to the point of near-uselessness), but before I encountered it, I was already well aware of what it described: The incentives of the free6 web were perverse from the beginning, and we’re reaping their inevitable consequences now—search engines are clogged to the gills with useless AI-generated garbage; social media sites are nothing but half-literate morons screaming at each other; once-proud media bastions are completely hollowed out.
A vast wasteland.
I’ve obviously tried to write that essay several times here, but Kriss did it much better. His take is worth at least a few reads.
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
I was reading a lot of books that I thought were just-okay at the time, and I had a moment where I was like, “Maaaaaybe I can recommend that people alternate chapters of Stephen King’s The Stand with Kathleen Hale’s Slenderman: Online Obsession, Mental Illness, and the Violent Crime of Two Midwestern Girls???” I am glad I did not do this, though, because it would have been dumb.
⬅️ What I wrote back then
4. Shadowgate VR: The Mines of Mythrok
(2021 video game by Dave Marsh and Karl Roelofs)
Man, have I got mixed feelings about VR these days!
When my wife insisted that we needed a VR headset, my immediate response was “Why? What can VR do that a normal device can’t? If we buy one, it will absolutely just sit in our basement and collect dust.”
But then she bought one, and I thought I should at least try it, and I immediately saw that Whaaaaaaat, there’s a new entry in one of my absolute favorite game series that’s VR-exclusive??? And then I downloaded Shadowgate VR, and I loved every single minute of it…
…and then I finished it, and since then, the VR headset has sat in our basement and collected dust.
It’s not that I don’t like the thing—it absolutely adds a level of immersion that you can’t get from other devices—but it’s really hard to find a chunk of time when I can shut out the world enough to really enjoy that immersion, and I have yet to find a game that I love anywhere near as much as Shadowgate. I’d love to hear reader thoughts on this: Does VR need to be a thing? Will it ever be a thing? Am I an idiot for letting my wife buy this device?
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
I almost recommended Christopher Landon’s weird horror-comedy Happy Death Day, and possibly its even weirder sci-fi sequel Happy Death Day 2U. Those movies annoyed me with how good they were. Movies with titles that dumb have no business being that clever.
⬅️ What I wrote back then
3. Anna and the Apocalypse
(2017 film by John McPhail)
I can now say that I’ve seen two feature films directed by John McPhail, and one of them, Anna and the Apocalypse, has become one of my favorite movies of all time, while the other, Dear David, is a solid contender for the worst thing I’ve ever sat through. I’m not sure how to reconcile that, except to keep in mind that Anna was something of a labor of love and David was obviously just him cashing a paycheck.
Anna and the Apocalypse is a Christmas zombie musical, and based on that description, you almost definitely know whether it’s for you. It’s somewhat held back by its tiny budget, but what’s here is very good: the songs are catchy and clever and the zombie fights are equal parts gruesome and hilarious. Apparently this one was partially inspired by that one musical episode of Buffy, which makes me wonder if I should give Buffy another chance.7
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
I finally got around to Stranger Things around the same time I was watching this one (mainly because my agent’s assistant compared the novel I’m currently “on sub” with to it, so I figured I’d better watch it). I was pleasantly surprised at how well done it was (and how it mostly kept the nostalgia-milking to a minimum), but since I was the last person in the universe to see it, it would have been pointless to give it a shout-out.
⬅️ What I wrote back then
2. Calvin
(2015 novel by Martine Leavitt)
And speaking of pointless nostalgia…this novel caught me completely off-guard.
Calvin tells the story of seventeen-year-old schizophrenic kid who’s become convinced his fate is being steered somehow by Calvin and Hobbes creator Bill Watterson. Seeking to be free of his delusions, he and his friend Susie vow to walk across a frozen Lake Erie to demand that Bill set him free. It’s a bizarre premise, but the end result is equal parts sweet, funny, lonely, and harrowing.
I’m currently reading this one to my eleven-year-old daughter, and she’s loving it as much as I do.
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
Choosing Calvin was a no-brainer, but I remember also enjoying Freddie deBoer’s book The Cult of Smart: How Our Broken Education System Perpetuates Social Injustice around the same time.
⬅️ What I wrote back then
1. You’ll Know When You Get There
(2016 short story collection by Lynda E. Rucker)
I still remember vividly the first time I read this collection’s best story, “The House on Cobb Street” (about a house that “erases people”), turned off my bedside lamp…and then sat up all night filled with overpowering dread. In the morning, I immediately texted a horror-loving friend and asked him if he’d read any Rucker. I couldn’t believe I hadn’t picked her stuff up sooner.
So hi again, Lynda. Sorry if this is weird. I dig your stuff. And reader, if you want to be haunted for the rest of your life (and who doesn’t, right?), I strongly recommend you give her fiction a shot.
Regret-O-Meter™️:
What I should have recommended instead:
No lie: Before I stumbled across You’ll Know When You Get There, I was 100% ready to recommend Shannon Thrace’s 18 Months: A Memoir of a Marriage Lost to Gender Identity. This was a great month for reading—I discovered two of my favorite authors, back-to-back.
⬅️ What I wrote back then
Anyway, if you made it this far, thanks for being a reader! And hey, take a sec to check at least one of these things out, if you haven’t. I highly recommend (most of) all of them! 🕹🌙🧸
Or you could read my books!
Hey, thanks for reading! If you’re new to this newsletter, here’s how it works: everyone who signs up to receive it in their email inbox gets free e-book copies of both my published books, plus you get entered in a monthly drawing for a free signed paperback copy of each! Why? Because I like you.
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Ophelia, Alive: A Ghost Story, my debut novel about ghosts, zombies, Hamlet, and higher-ed angst. Won a few minor awards, might be good.
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…plus:
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“To what have I been grooving?”
“Three-year anniversary,” for those of you who like being redundant
Just kidding, obviously. No one goes to the movies anymore.
Note to the FBI: John Lennon died before I was even born, I swear. Ask Run-DMC.
Finally, a universal universe!
I guess that’s “free” as in both speech and beer?
Buffy is one of those shows where the weirdo fans obsessed with the “lore” (of which my college roommate was one) are so off-putting that I just can’t work up the energy to watch the thing with an open mind. (It’s just a television program, guys.) If you want to try to convince me to give it another shot, have at it in the comments.
Haha! I'm just relieved you don't regret your recommendations of my books!
If you want further reason to be amazed that The Invisible Man was so good, consider that its writer/director was also the co-creator of Saw.