The 2025 Culture Wrap-Up Edition

Kevin Maguire (KM) writes The New Fatherhood. When he isn’t hunting down B-sides, he is working as a coach and on the book he should be writing right now. He previously wrote editions on the rickshaw, FC Barcelona, Bluey and voice memos.

Kevin here. During my second year at university, I landed my dream part-time job: manning the counter in a record store. Piccadilly Records was to Manchester what Rough Trade was to London, or Amoeba was to San Francisco—a cultural hub that bands and music lovers would stop in to on their pilgrimage to the home of Madchester, Oasis and Factory Records.

Whilst the pay was terrible, the staff discount meant I could now buy records at cost price, and have first refusal on all kinds of “limited to only five copies for the store” types of releases. The highlight of the year came in December, when we’d release the highly anticipated end of year chart. The process would kick off a month earlier, as each staff member was invited to submit their own top 10 albums and compilations for the year. Then we’d aggregate the lists, argue about eligibility, and cosplay as cultural scientists.

One of the perks of contributing to Why Is This Interesting—aside from bragging rights amongst my old strategist colleagues who read every issue religiously—is access to a Slack space populated by other contributors. They’re the nicest bunch of people I’ve never met, and in lieu of heading to an office every day, it’s become the digital water cooler I didn’t know I needed. It has been a constant source of recommendations on what to watch, read and listen to. So, amidst the dying embers of 2025, I borrowed the old record store system—asking a few folks for their cultural highlights of the year, tallying up the totals, and inviting participants to share why they loved them.

The Books We Read

A note: My own reading list for 2025 hit 45 books, but only one of them was released in 2025. As it turns out, I wasn’t alone. Instead, here are 10 books released anytime that we read and loved in 2025.

The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington by Jennet Conan. Tells the story of how British spies infiltrated Washington, D.C., during World War II with the explicit goal of drawing the United States into the war. The book centers on Roald Dahl, with Ian Fleming and David Ogilvy making regular appearances as well. It’s a fascinating slice of history, especially when you consider that all three went on to become masters of communication and storytelling. John

Poisoner in Chief: Sidney Gottlieb and the CIA Search for Mind Control by Stephen Kinzer. However much you think you know about the perfidious things our secret intelligence apparatus concocted in a time of exceptional national fragility, it’s much much worse. I apologize to all those I dismissed as crazy before reading this book. Keith

Other Minds by Peter Godfrey-Smith. A fun, engaging exploration of consciousness and evolutionary history with a particular focus on the octopus and cephalopods more broadly. To call these creatures fascinating would be a massive understatement. A terrific work of popular science. Graydon

Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth by Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson, and Jason Stanford. As someone stuck behind enemy lines in Texas, this book captures everything that has led us to where we are as a society today: historical revisionism in the name of white supremacy, where there is no longer any collective sense of objective truth/reality. It doesn’t just blow up the story of the Alamo, it does the same thing for all of Texas history. You learn fun facts like that the entire war of Texas Independence was purely in the name of slavery, arguably even more so than the American Civil War. Did you know that the Republic of Texas had the only Constitution of any nation that not only enshrined slavery into law, but expressly forbid the emancipation of any slave? Chris

Moby Dick by Herman Melville. I was genuinely surprised by how much I enjoyed this book. The author’s sensibilities felt deeply modern, and his cynicism towards many of the systems that powered his world and ours are on full display. It’s genuinely funny at some points and gripping at others. It sets out to tackle some big themes and make good on the promise. Graydon

The Habsburg Empire: A New History by Pieter Judson. In a world dominated by nationalism, the Habsburg example shows how statebuilding in a multinational polity can be effective and even successful, and how it was undone not so much by nationalist fervor as a lack of faith by elites in the multinational idea. Guan

The Swerve by Stephen Greenblatt. I can’t imagine a more timely book, showing how one world-changing work was repressed for centuries (and very nearly lost forever). When an empire stops reading and protecting books, the results are catastrophic. Jason

Yoga by Emmanuel Carrère. A book regularly cited in comment threads and other internet rabbit holes as I’ve been researching the idea of attending a 10-day silent vipassana retreat. A phenomenally written memoir that unfolds in an entirely unpredictable fashion. Kevin

Lives of Weeds by John Cardina. The book I loved the most in 2025. I didn’t expect reading that one was ever going to be on my book bingo card but it was one of the most interesting and important books I’ve ever read. Eurof

Colin’s Castle and Colin’s Grandma by Holly Swain. Can I be cheeky and recommend this children’s book, written by my wife? Matt (Absolutely, and having read them to my son over the year, I’m happy to recommend them too—Kevin)

The Movies We Watched

One Battle After Another. If Benicio del Toro doesn’t win best supporting actor I will start the revolution myself. A few small beers, Bob? Steve

Sinners. 2025 was a great year for horror movies, and Sinners is easily at the top of this list, because much like The Shining it is essentially a masterpiece of cinema regardless of genre. It’s compelling storytelling at its finest, a period piece that still feels contemporary because it constantly reminds you that we haven’t come that far when it comes to systemic racism in America. The only things that keeps it from being a five star film for me? The first shot establishing twins being played by a single actor is trying too hard to be clever about it, and the epilogue with Buddy Guy took me out of the movie completely. Chris

Bugonia. Nothing beats walking into a cinema on release day knowing absolutely nothing—no spoiler-laden trailer, no friends whispering “it’s X meets Y.” You hand over two hours of your life and see what comes back, comfortable in the safe hands of an auteur who knows exactly the story they want to tell. Bugonia is a parable about internet echo chambers and climate activism—how certainty hardens and the danger of finding community amidst paranoia. The unsettling viewing experience was heightened by a woman sitting behind me, laughing in what I believed were all the wrong places. It was only later I realised we had seen entirely different movies, with Yorgos Lanthimos leaving interpretation open until the very last moments. Go in blind, save the bees. Kevin

Also mentioned…

The Phoenician Scheme
28 Years Later
September 5
Wake Up Dead Man: A Knives Out Mystery
Black Bag
Bring Her Back
Eddington

The Shows We Loved

Andor (Season Two). As the debate raged over whether the United States is sliding toward fascism, we looked to a galaxy far, far away for a timely story about how authoritarianism actually works, and what it takes to resist it. Andor gave us villains with ideologies, insecurities and infighting, their execution as much about climbing the career ladder with competence as spreading the Emperor’s will. This made the Empire more than simply evil—it made them terrifyingly plausible. A masterclass in how tyranny gets built, and what it costs to push back. Kevin

Adolescence (Season One). In a series about sadness, neither that word nor that emotion is ever mentioned directly. Instead, you get the color blue tracing a line through the background (see e.g. in the police station and therapy room) and Stephen Graham, in the show’s only moment of levity, telling his family how every great song needs a good bass line. To a young man, the internet’s like those things, too: always in the background, coloring every mood. Steve

The Rehearsal (Season Two). The magician Penn Teller once described magic as “someone spending more time on something than anyone else might reasonably expect”. This goes some way to explain why Nathan Fielder (who was a magician as a kid) does what he does in the second season of The Rehearsal. It won’t prepare you for everything you see on screen though, mainly because you won’t believe anyone would go to the lengths that Nathan Fielder actually does. But he really does go to those lengths, and that is why The Rehearsal is not just great television, but actual magic. Matt

Also mentioned…

Severance (Season Two)
Taskmaster (Season Nineteen + Twenty)
Pluribus (Season One)
The Diplomat (Season Three)
Slow Horses (Season Four)
The Pitt (Season One)
The Chair Company (Season One)