Hello, hello, and happy new year! We’ve made another successful orbit of the sun, and that’s something to celebrate. Yay us!
But you’re here for the tally of the year in music and books. Let’s get to it!
Top Plays 2025
1. Kate Bush, “Running Up That Hill”
2. Tears for Fears, “Mad World”
3. Air Supply, “Sweet Dreams”
4. Supertramp, “The Logical Song”
5. Queen, “You’re My Best Friend”
6. The Who, “Magic Bus”
7. Dua Lipa, “Houdini”
8. ABBA, “Chiquitita”
9. Blue Rodeo, “After the Rain”
10. Love & Rockets, “So Alive”
11. Seals and Crofts, “Summer Breeze”
12. Doobie Brothers, “Long Train Runnin’”
13. Gowan, “Moonlight Desires”
14. ABBA, “Summer Night City”
15. Kate Bush, “Burning Bridge”
16. Deep Purple, “Hush”
17. Linda Ronstadt with Aaron Neville, “Don’t Know Much”
18. Rod Stewart, “Ain’t Love a Bitch”
19. Luba, “Every Time I See Your Picture”
20. Rockpile, “Teacher Teacher”
21. Simon and Garfunkel, “The Boxer”
22. Florence and the Machine, “Dream Girl Evil”
23. Little River Band, “Help Is on Its Way”
24. The Lovin' Spoonful, “Summer in the City”
25. Gerry Rafferty, “Night Owl”
As I have done for the last several years, I leaned into nostalgia this year, well, nostalgia and familiarity. My iTunes library now contains roughly 32,500 tracks, which is a LOT of listening. To listen to most of the library (which I did: only 9,760 tracks — less than a third of the collection — were unplayed as of last night at midnight), I had to listen more extensively and less intensively. But obviously old favourites persist.
Speaking of old favourites, now seems as good a time as any to mention that toward the end of 2026 I have a short creative nonfiction piece coming out in an anthology called Beyond the Concert Hall, which might explain some of my listening habits. Watch this space!
New music acquired:
• Hania Rain, Nonfiction: Piano Concerto in Four Movements
• Edmonton Winds, Close to Home
• Florence and the Machine, Everybody Scream
• KPop Demon Hunters soundtrack
That's not to say that I didn't also acquire a lot of older music, as obviously I did. But one certainly isn't immersed in music in one's fifties as one is in one's teens.
And then of course there's reading, and so...
Books, Books, Books
My final tally of books read in 2025 was a personal low: 106. But things can only get better, right? Here are some stats:
• Books written/edited by women: 72
• Books written/edited by men: 32
• Books written/edited by nonbinary people: 2
• Volumes of poetry: 24
• Nonfiction (including memoir, creative nonfiction, and anthologies): 21
Here are some of my favourite books read this year:
• Alana Cattapan et al., eds., Feministing in Political Science
• Dawn Macdonald, Northerny
• Craig Mod, Things Become Other Things
• Premee Mohamed, The Annual Migration of Clouds
• Kenneth Oppel, Best of All Worlds
• Philip Pullman, The Rose Field
• Richard Siken, Crush
• Emily Tesh, The Incandescent
• Ira Wells, On Book Banning
Of these, Things Become Other Things and The Rose Field were the most striking, and I can see myself rereading them (although the final three books in Lyra's world are so long!). The others? Well... there's some much to read, and my "to-be-read" shelves are groaning, so I'm not confident I'll be doing a lot of rereading. But maybe?
While we’re at it...
Favorite cultural experiences of 2025
As I mentioned in an earlier post, I tried to participate in many cultural activities this year, and hope to continue doing so in the year ahead. Here are some highlights:
• Sarah Millican, Late Bloomer
• Laser Pink Floyd The Wall
• Edmonton City as Museum Project (ECAMP), Ukrainian Ties
• Provincial Archives Open House
• Samantha Williams-Chapelsky at the FAB Gallery
• Sarah Slean concert at Festival Place
Once again, I wish you bright, happy days as we move through the universe once again.
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