‘Best Of’ Lists

  1. 2025 Albums (near-final)
  2. 2025 Films (near-final)
  3. 2025 Fiction (near-final)
  4. 2025 Nonfiction (near-final)
  5. All-Time Albums
  6. All-Time Films
  7. All-Time Fiction
  8. All-Time Nonfiction
  9. 2024 Albums
  10. 2024 Films
  11. 2024 Fiction
  12. 2024 Nonfiction
  13. Best Order in Which to Read Asimov’s Foundation/Robot Series
  14. 2023 Albums
  15. 2023 Films
  16. 2023 Fiction
  17. 2023 Nonfiction
  18. 2022 Albums
  19. 2022 Films
  20. 2022 Fiction
  21. 2022 Nonfiction
  22. 2021 Albums
  23. 2021 Films
  24. 2021 Fiction
  25. 2021 Nonfiction
  26. 2020 Albums
  27. 2020 Films
  28. 2020 Fiction
  29. 2020 Nonfiction
  30. 2019 Albums
  31. 2019 Films
  32. 2019 Fiction
  33. 2019 Nonfiction
  34. 2018 Albums
  35. 2018 Films
  36. 2018 Fiction
  37. 2018 Nonfiction
  38. 2017 Albums
  39. 2017 Films
  40. 2017 Fiction
  41. 2017 Nonfiction
  42. 2016 Albums
  43. 2016 Films
  44. 2016 Fiction
  45. 2016 Nonfiction

2025 Albums (near-final)

  1. Blood Orange – Essex Honey
  2. Samia – Bloodless
  3. Indigo De Souza – Precipice
  4. HAIM – I quit
  5. Bon Iver – SABLE, fABLE
  6. FKA twigs – Eusexua
  7. Lorde – Virgin
  8. Flock of Dimes – The Life You Save
  9. Oklou – choke enough
  10. This is Lorelei – Holo Boy

(Best Songs of 2025 – Spotify Playlist)

2025 Films (near-final)

  1. The Brutalist
  2. Coherence (2013)
  3. Sinners
  4. One Battle After Another
  5. Weapons
  6. Wake Up Dead Man
  7. Black Bag
  8. Do the Right Thing (1989)
  9. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl
  10. A House of Dynamite

2025 Fiction (near-final)

  1. Dream Count by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  2. The Unconsoled by Kazuo Ishiguro (1995)
  3. All Fours by Miranda July
  4. For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway (1940)
  5. Tell Me Everything by Elizabeth Strout
  6. The Idiot by Elif Batuman (2017)
  7. Conclave by Robert Harris (2016)
  8. Freedom by Jonathan Franzen (2010)
  9. White Fang by Jack London (1906)
  10. Songs for Other People’s Weddings by David Levithan and Jens Lekman

2025 Nonfiction (near-final)

  1. Air-Borne by Carl Zimmer
  2. Hostage by Eli Sharabi
  3. The Oregon Trail by Rinker Buck (2015)
  4. The Pacific Circuit by Alexis Madrigal
  5. Careless People by Sarah Wynn-Williams
  6. Paper Girl by Beth Macy
  7. Original Sin by Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson
  8. Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson
  9. Pronoun Trouble by John McWhorter
  10. Stuck by Yoni Appelbaum

All-Time Albums

  1. The National – Trouble Will Find Me
  2. Bon Iver – 22, A Million
  3. The War on Drugs – Lost In The Dream
  4. Nick Drake – Bryter Layter
  5. Belle and Sebastian – Dear Catastrophe Waitress
  6. Kanye West – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy
  7. fun. – Some Nights
  8. Ásgeir – In the Silence
  9. Blood Orange – Cupid Deluxe
  10. Charli XCX – BRAT

All-Time Films

  1. Boyhood
  2. Primer
  3. Tenet
  4. The Handmaiden
  5. It Follows
  6. Green Room
  7. Moonlight
  8. Birdman
  9. In Bruges
  10. The Tree of Life

All-Time Fiction

  1. The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu (2008)
  2. The Speaker for the Dead by Orson Scott Card (1986)
  3. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky (2015)
  4. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir (2021)
  5. The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov (1955)
  6. The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante (2012)
  7. Exhalation by Ted Chiang (2019)
  8. North Woods by Daniel Mason (2023)
  9. The Goldfinch by Donna Tart (2013)
  10. The Trumpet of the Swan by E.B. White (1970)

All-Time Nonfiction

  1. The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs (1961)
  2. The Extended Phenotype by Richard Dawkins (1982)
  3. Systems of Survival by Jane Jacobs (1992)
  4. The Expanding Circle by Peter Singer (1981)
  5. I Am A Strange Loop by Douglas R. Hofstadter (2007)
  6. The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro (1975)
  7. Inadequate Equilibria: Where and How Civilizations Get Stuck by Eliezer Yudkowsky (2017)
  8. Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit (1984)
  9. The Book of Why by Judea Pearl (2018)

2024 Albums

  1. Charli XCX – BRAT
  2. Trace Mountains – Into The Burning Blue
  3. Kacy Hill – BUG
  4. Kendrick Lamar – GNX
  5. Katie Pruitt – Mantras
  6. Clairo – Charm
  7. Tinashe – Quantum Baby
  8. Nilüfer Yanya – My Method Actor
  9. Phosphorescent – Revelator
  10. Half Waif – See You At The Maypole

(Best Songs of 2024 – Spotify Playlist)

2024 Films

  1. Challengers
  2. Anora
  3. Civil War
  4. The Zone Of Interest (2023)
  5. Dune: Part Two
  6. His Three Daughters
  7. Four Daughters (2023)
  8. Hit Man
  9. Emilia Pérez
  10. Dìdi (弟弟)

2024 Fiction

  1. North Woods by Daniel Mason (2023)
  2. Luminaries by Eleanor Catton (2013)
  3. The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (2001)
  4. Long Island Compromise by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
  5. The Bee Sting by Paul Murray (2023)
  6. Rejection by Tony Tulathimutte
  7. Martyr! by Kaveh Akbar
  8. Absolution by Jeff VanderMeer
  9. Playground by Richard Powers
  10. Long Island by Colm Tóibín

2024 Nonfiction

  1. I Am A Strange Loop by Douglas R. Hofstadter (2007)
  2. The Power Broker by Robert A. Caro (1975)
  3. The High Cost of Free Parking by Donald C. Shoup (2004)
  4. Chasing Hope by Nicholas D. Kristof
  5. Dream Land by Sam Quinones (2015)
  6. On Call by Anthony Fauci
  7. Lovely One by Ketanji Brown Jackson
  8. This Is Your Mind On Plants by Michael Pollan (2021)
  9. Some People Need Killing by Patrcia Evangelista (2023)
  10. Knife by Salman Rushdie

Best Order in Which to Read Asimov’s Foundation/Robot Series

  1. Foundation
  2. Foundation and Empire
  3. Second Foundation
  4. Foundation’s Edge
  5. I, Robot
  6. The Caves of Steel
  7. The Naked Sun
  8. The Robots of Dawn
  9. Robots and Empire
  10. Robot Visions (“Mirror Image” specifically)
  11. Foundation and Earth
  12. Prelude to Foundation 
  13. Forward the Foundation
  14. The End of Eternity

2023 Albums

  1. Caroline Polachek – Desire, I Want to Turn Into You
  2. The Japanese House – In the End It Always Does
  3. Miya Folick – ROACH
  4. Samia – Honey
  5. The National – Laugh Track
  6. boygenius – the record
  7. Tiny Habits – Tiny Things
  8. Fenne Lily – Big Picture
  9. Sufjan Stevens – Javelin
  10. Becca Mancari – Left Hand

(Best Songs of 2023 – Spotify Playlist)

2023 Films

  1. Past Lives
  2. The Holdovers
  3. Anatomy of a Fall
  4. Oppenheimer
  5. Killers of the Flower Moon
  6. Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3
  7. Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
  8. The Killer
  9. John Wick: Chapter 4
  10. The Creator

2023 Fiction

  1. The Maniac by Benjamin Labatut
  2. The Deluge by Stephen Markley
  3. Birnam Wood by Eleanor Catton
  4. Tom Lake by Ann Patchett
  5. Trust by Hernan Diaz (2022)
  6. Olive Kitteridge by Elizabeth Strout (2008)
  7. Demon Copperhead by Barbara Kingsolver (2022)
  8. The City & The City by China Mieville (2009)
  9. Perfume by Patrick Süskind (1985)
  10. Kindred by Octavia E. Butler (1979)

2023 Nonfiction

  1. Invisible Child by Andrea Elliott (2021)
  2. Recoding America by Jen Pahlka
  3. An Immense World: How Animal Senses Reveal the Hidden Realms Around Us by Ed Yong (2022)
  4. Palo Alto by Malcolm Harris
  5. Fire Weather by John Vaillant
  6. The Worlds I See by Fei-Fei Li
  7. Every Man For Himself And God Against All by Werner Herzog
  8. Going Infinite by Michael Lewis
  9. Elon Musk by Walter Isaacson
  10. Killers of the Flower Moon by David Grann (2017)

2022 Albums

  1. Charlie Hickey – Nervous at Night
  2. Stella Donnelly – Flood
  3. Alex G – God Save the Animals
  4. Hurray for the Riff Raff – LIFE ON EARTH
  5. Big Thief – Dragon New Warm Mountain I Believe in You
  6. Girlpool – Forgiveness
  7. Carly Rae Jepsen – The Loneliest Time
  8. Skullcrusher – Quiet the Room
  9. Weyes Blood – And in the Darkness, Hearts Aglow
  10. First Aid Kit – Palomino

(Best Songs of 2022 – Spotify Playlist)

2022 Films

  1. Top Gun: Maverick
  2. Drive My Car
  3. C’mon C’mon
  4. Everything Everywhere All at Once
  5. The French Dispatch
  6. Petite Maman
  7. The Banshees of Inishiren
  8. Kimi
  9. Guillermo del Toro’s Pinocchio
  10. Glass Onion

2022 Fiction

  1. The Candy House by Jennifer Egan
  2. Piranesi by Susanna Clarke (2020)
  3. Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow by Gabrielle Zevin
  4. The Anomaly by Herve Le Tellier (2021)
  5. The Stone Sky by N.K. Jemisin (2017)
  6. The Tenth of December by George Saunders (2013)
  7. Children of Dune by Frank Herbert (1976)
  8. The Road by Cormac McCarthy (2006)
  9. Deacon King Kong by James McBride (2020)
  10. Phenotypes by Paulo Scott (2019)

2022 Nonfiction

  1. Wastelands by Corban Addison
  2. These Precious Days by Ann Patchett (2021)
  3. The Fight to Save the Town by Michelle Wilde Anderson
  4. The Deeper the Roots by Michael Tubbs (2021)
  5. The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson (2003)
  6. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion (2005)
  7. The Professor and the Madman by Simon Winchester (1998)
  8. In The Margins by Elena Ferrante (2021)
  9. A Brief History of Time by Stephen W. Hawking (1988)
  10. The Three Marriages by David Whyte (2009)

2021 Albums

  1. Trace Mountains – HOUSE OF CONFUSION
  2. Birdy – Young Heart
  3. Charlie Hickey – Count the Stairs (EP)
  4. The War on Drugs – I Don’t Live Here Anymore
  5. Japanese Breakfast – Jubilee
  6. Hand Habits – Fun House
  7. Big Red Machine – How Long Do You Think It’s Gonna Last?
  8. Kings of Convenience – Peace or Love
  9. Clairo – Sling
  10. Lucy Dacus – Home Video

(Best Songs of 2021 – Spotify Playlist)

2021 Films

  1. Pig
  2. Lovers Rock
  3. Nomadland
  4. Luca
  5. Sound of Metal
  6. Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom
  7. A Quiet Place Part II
  8. Beginning
  9. No Sudden Move
  10. The Mitchells vs. The Machines

2021 Fiction

  1. Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir
  2. The Story of a New Name by Elena Ferrante (2012)
  3. Red Mars by Kim Stanley Robinson (1992)
  4. Childhood’s End by Arthur C. Clarke (1953)
  5. Interpreter of Maladies by Jhumpa Lahiri (1999)
  6. The Buried Giant by Kazuo Ishiguro (2015)
  7. Those Who Leave and Those Who Stay by Elena Ferrante (2013)
  8. The Year of the Flood by Margaret Atwood (2009)
  9. The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson (2020)
  10. Bewilderment by Richard Powers

2021 Nonfiction

  1. The Premonition by Michael Lewis
  2. A Promised Land by Barack Obama (2020)
  3. Conjectures and Refutations by Karl Popper (2002)
  4. The Fifth Risk by Michael Lewis (2018)
  5. Crying in H Mart by Michelle Zauner
  6. Mortality by Christopher Hitchens (2012)
  7. Coventry by Rachel Cusk (2019)
  8. Consolations by David Whyte (2014)
  9. On Juneteenth by Annette Gordon-Reed
  10. Last Best Hope by George Packer

2020 Albums

  1. Trace Mountains – Lost in the Country
  2. Phoebe Bridgers – Punisher
  3. Bonny Light Horseman – Bonny Light Horseman
  4. The 1975 – Notes on a Conditional Form
  5. TORRES – Silver Tongue
  6. Eve Owen – Don’t Let the Ink Dry
  7. Whitney – Candid
  8. Skullcrusher – Places / Plans (EP)
  9. The Northern Belle – We Wither, We Bloom
  10. Fleet Foxes – Shore

(Best Songs of 2020 – Spotify Playlist)

2020 Films

  1. Tenet
  2. Ema
  3. First Cow
  4. Blow the Man Down
  5. The Trial of the Chicago 7
  6. Crip Camp
  7. Palm Springs
  8. Emma.
  9. Da 5 Bloods
  10. Onward

2020 Fiction

  1. The End of Eternity by Isaac Asimov (1955)
  2. Apeirogon by Colum McCann
  3. The Parable of the Talents by Octavia E. Butler (1998)
  4. The Remains of the Day by Kazuo Ishiguro (1989)
  5. Annihilation by Jeff Vandermeer (2014)
  6. The Plague by Albert Camus (1947)
  7. Always Coming Home by Ursula K. Le Guin (1985)
  8. The Grapes of Wrath by John Steinbeck (1939)
  9. Little Women by Louisa May Alcott (1868)
  10. Circe by Madeline Miller (2018)

2020 Nonfiction

  1. Golden Gates by Conor Dougherty
  2. Know Your Price by Andre Perry
  3. The Meritocracy Trap by Daniel Markovits (2019)
  4. Self-Portrait in Black and White by Thomas Chatterton Williams (2019)
  5. The Madness of Crowds by Douglas Murray (2019)
  6. Alta California by Nick Neely (2019)
  7. Caste by Isabel Wilkerson
  8. The Omnivore’s Dilemma by Michael Pollan (2006)
  9. Making Sense by Sam Harris
  10. Tokyo Vice by Jake Adelstein (2009)

2019 Albums

  1. American Football – American Football (LP3)
  2. The National – I Am Easy to Find
  3. Caroline Polachek – Pang
  4. Fruit Bats – Gold Past Life
  5. Big Thief – U.F.O.F.
  6. Clairo – Immunity
  7. Weyes Blood – Titanic Rising
  8. Hand Habits – placeholder
  9. Stella Donnelly – Beware of the Dogs
  10. Bayonne – Drastic Measures

(Best Songs of 2019 – Spotify Playlist)

2019 Films

  1. Parasite
  2. Portrait of a Lady on Fire
  3. Knives Out
  4. 1917
  5. Uncut Gems
  6. Marriage Story
  7. Little Women
  8. Peanut Butter Falcon
  9. Climax
  10. Avengers: Endgame

2019 Fiction

  1. Fleishman Is In Trouble by Taffy Brodesser-Akner
  2. Exhalation by Ted Chiang
  3. Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality by Eliezer Yudkowsky (2015)
  4. Pachinko by Min Jin Lee (2017)
  5. There There by Tommy Orange (2018)
  6. Find Me by André Aciman
  7. Call My By Your Name by André Aciman (2007)
  8. Number 9 Dream by David Mitchell (2001)
  9. Foundation by Isaac Asimov (1951)
  10. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood (1985)

2019 Nonfiction

  1. An American Summer by Alex Kotlowitz
  2. Gödel, Escher, Bach by Douglas R. Hofstadter (1979)
  3. The Uninhabitable Earth by David Wallace-Wells
  4. Scarcity by Sendhil Mullainathan (2013)
  5. Know My Name by Chanel Miller
  6. How Change Happens by Cass R. Sunstein
  7. Bad Blood by John Carreyrou (2018)
  8. Because Internet by Gretchen McCulloch
  9. Automating Inequality by Virginia Eubanks (2018)
  10. Until We Reckon by Danielle Sered

2018 Albums

  1. Say Sue Me – When We Were Together
  2. The 1975 – A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships
  3. Big Red Machine – Big Red Machine
  4. Luluc – Sculptor
  5. The Tallest Man On Earth – When The Bird Sees The Solid Ground
  6. KIDS SEE GHOSTS – KIDS SEE GHOSTS
  7. Rhye – Blood
  8. Trace Mountains – A Partner To Lean On
  9. Yo La Tengo – There’s A Riot Going On
  10. Janelle Monae – Dirty Computer

(Best Songs of 2018 – Spotify Playlist)

2018 Films

  1. You Were Never Really Here
  2. Hereditary
  3. A Quiet Place
  4. First Reformed
  5. Into the Spider-verse
  6. Cold War
  7. Death of Stalin
  8. First Man
  9. The Favourite
  10. Avengers: Infinity War

2018 Fiction

  1. Ball Lightning by Cixin Liu (2004)
  2. Less by Andrew Sean Greer (2017)
  3. The Overstory by Richard Powers
  4. Killing Commendatore by Haruki Murakami
  5. The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin (1969)
  6. The Little Friend by Donna Tart (2002)
  7. A Pale View of Hills by Kazuo Ishiguro (1982)

2018 Nonfiction

  1. Enlightenment Now: The Case For Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by Steven Pinker
  2. The Book of Why by Judea Pearl
  3. Inadequate Equilibria: Where and How Civilizations Get Stuck by Eliezer Yudkowsky
  4. The Wizard and the Prophet by Charles C. Mann
  5. The Captured Economy by Brink Lindsey & Steven M. Teles
  6. The Coddling of the American Mind by Jonathan Haight and Greg Lukianoff
  7. The Dinosaur Artist by Paige Williams
  8. Science in the Soul by Richard Dawkins
  9. Palaces for the People by Eric Klinenberg
  10. Underground by Haruki Murakami (1997)

2017 Albums

  1. Big Thief – Capacity
  2. The National – Sleep Well Beast
  3. The War on Drugs – A Deeper Understanding
  4. Kendrick Lamar – DAMN.
  5. Rostam – Half-Light
  6. Jens Lekman – Life Will See You Now
  7. SZA – Ctrl
  8. Real Estate – In Mind
  9. Mac DeMarco – This Old Dog
  10. Fleet Foxes – Crack-Up

2017 Films

  1. Get Out
  2. Raw
  3. The Florida Project
  4. Dunkirk
  5. Call Me By Your Name
  6. Wind River
  7. Detroit
  8. Lady Bird
  9. Good Time
  10. Molly’s Game

2017 Fiction

  1. The Dark Forest by Cixin Liu (2008)
  2. Forest Dark by Nicole Krauss (2017)
  3. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)
  4. Death’s End by Cixin Liu (2010)
  5. Commonwealth by Ann Patchett (2016)
  6. The Sympathizer by Viet Thanh Nguyen (2015)

2017 Nonfiction

  1. Evicted by Matthew Desmond (2016)
  2. Reasons and Persons by Derek Parfit (1984)
  3. Systems of Survival by Jane Jacobs (1992)
  4. The Expanding Circle by Peter Singer (1981)
  5. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi (2016)
  6. What I Talk About When I Talk About Running by Haruki Murakami (2007)
  7. Dark Age Ahead by Jane Jacobs (2004)
  8. The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris (2010)
  9. Against Empathy by Paul Bloom (2016)
  10. Age of Ambition by Evan Osnos (2014)

2016 Albums

  1. Bon Iver – 22, A Million
  2. Frank Ocean – Blonde
  3. Whitney – A Light Upon the Lake
  4. Lambchop – FLOTUS
  5. Blood Orange – Freetown Sound
  6. Kanye West – The Life of Pablo
  7. Hamilton Leithauser + Rostam – I Had a Dream That You Were Mine
  8. Solange – A Seat At the Table
  9. Drake – Views
  10. James Blake – The Colour in Anything

2016 Films

  1. Moonlight
  2. Green Room
  3. The Handmaiden
  4. Everybody Wants Some!!
  5. Arrival
  6. La La Land
  7. Manchester By the Sea
  8. Sing Street
  9. Hell or High Water
  10. Hunt for the Wilderpeople

2016 Fiction

  1. Infinite Jest by David Foster Wallace (1996)
  2. Here I Am by Jonathan Safran Foer
  3. Les Miserables by Victor Hugo (1862)
  4. A God in Ruins by Kate Atkinson (2015)
  5. 1Q84 by Haruki Murakami (2009)
  6. Stories of Your Life and Others by Ted Chiang (2002)
  7. The Orphan Master’s Son by Adam Johnson (2012)
  8. Ready Player One by Ernest Cline (2011)
  9. The Martian by Andy Weir (2011)
  10. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller (1961)

2016 Nonfiction

  1. The Extended Phenotype by Richard Dawkins (1982)
  2. The Better Angels of Our Nature by Steven Pinker (2010)
  3. The Sixth Extinction by Elizabeth Kolbert (2014)
  4. The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins (2006)
  5. The Big Sort by Bill Bishop (2008)
  6. No Good Men Among the Living by Anand Gopal (2014)
  7. Learning to Die in the Anthropocene Roy Scranton (2015)
  8. The West Without Water by B. Lynn Ingram (2013)
  9. The Tenderloin by Randy Shaw (1960)
  10. The Oregon Experiment by Christopher W. Alexander (1975)