What I Liked
2023 edition.
As promised, below is my annual list of my favorite things I consumed this year. Per usual it’s not limited to 2023 releases, and entries are listed in no particular order. Actually, that’s not totally true, there’s probably some non-negligible amount of recency bias involved—this was not a good year for me logging my media consumption in real time, and I've probably left some big things out as well. Okay, enough caveats, there it all is. Happy new year.
Books (Fiction)
The Wolves of Eternity by Karl Ove Knausgård, translated by Martin Aitken
The MANIAC and When We Cease to Understand the World by Benjamin Labatut
New York 2140 by Kim Stanley Robinson
The Guest by Emma Cline
Transit by Anna Seghers
Goodbye to Berlin by Christopher Isherwood
Lazy City by Rachel Connolly
Books (Nonfiction)
Homage to Catalonia by George Orwell
Burn It Down by Maureen Ryan
Helgoland by Carlo Rovelli
Pirate Enlightenment by David Graeber
Books (Poetry)
Earth Room by Rachel Mannheimer
Chariot by Timothy Donnelly
The Book by Mary Ruefle
Tolstoy Killed Anna Karenina by Dara Barrois/Dixon
Snakedoctor by Maurice Manning
Comedy Things
Our Home Out West
Bag of Tricks, Django Gold
FULL Actors Roundtable: Justin Theroux, Rajat Suresh, Jeremy Levick & More
That’s It!, David Drake
Domestic Shorthair, Todd Barry
Cash Cow, Matt Barats
If You Didn’t Want Me Then, Beth Stelling
Slow & Steady, Joe Pera
Movies
Janet Planet, Annie Baker
Happy Hour, Ryusuke Hamaguchi (Have any of you seen this? It blew me away)
The Holdovers, Alexander Payne
Afire, Christian Petzold
Asteroid City, Wes Anderson (also his Netflix shorts)
Oppenheimer, Christopher Nolan
Showing Up, Kelly Reichardt
Knock at the Cabin, M. Night Shyamalan
Anatomy of a Fall, Justine Triet
Mission Impossible – Dead Reckoning, Christopher McQuarrie
May December, Todd Haynes
The Caine Mutiny Court-Martial, William Friedkin
Infinity Pool, Brandon Cronenberg
Killers of the Flower Moon, Martin Scorsese
Music
The Moon Also Rises, Johnny Flynn and Robert Macfarlane
Jenny from Thebes, The Mountain Goats
Javelin, Sufjan Stevens
Things I Saw Live
Infinite Life by Annie Baker, directed by James Macdonald
Bones and All by Anthony Jeselnik
Corn Beef, Dan Licata’s weekly show at The Gutter
Solo by Gabe Mollica
TV Shows
Scavengers Reign
I Hate Suzie (fully had never heard of this show, my bad, incredible first season, check it out on Max)
Dead Ringers
Foundation
Perry Mason
Copenhagen Cowboy
The Righteous Gemstones
How To With John Wilson
Beef
The Diplomat
Full Circle
Writers
Kieran McLean (especially his review of The Bear in Fran’s newsletter)
Vaccines
The updated novel coronavirus vaccine
The flu vaccine
Video Games
Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom (I don’t think I ever finished… still fun though)
God of War Ragnarök
