Categories
Playlist

Playlist of the Month: January 2026

Starting off the new year with a long playlist; while I didn’t quite get through my entire “music to listen to” backlog, I made significant progress. If I did new year’s resolutions, I would maybe retroactively claim “get through that backlog” as one of them.

Anyhow, you can listen to the whole playlist, or read on for some notes on various tracks. I’m still playing with the formatting of these to see what winds up being the easiest to skim through for the comments.

Categories
Review

“Emperor of Rome”

Mary Beard

My expectation here was definitely set by John Julius Norwitch’s style, where he kinda just started at the beginning and went in chronological order. Which is… an approach to talking about history. Probably the most traditional one, really.

This, however, was more willing to bounce around. There was certainly some amount of following chronology, but the chapters were each grouped by theme rather than, say, emperor. “The Emperor Abroad,” to discuss the various travels about the empire that they dead; “Face to Face” for an absolutely fascinating discussion of the art of the emperor, and the degree to which everything we have these days is the result of ancient PR campaigns.1 In general, the book isn’t about an emperor, or even a succession thereof, but about the emperor; the concept of the emperor, the office of the emperor. The continuity of imperial power.

It’s an interesting approach, and one that made the book more enjoyable to read. I’m never going to be able to keep track of the years in which things happened, the order of the emperors, any of that. But I’m going to remember that dinner parties were an effective way to express soft power, that imperial edicts were more performative than actually implemented, that politics has been politics for thousands of years. Human nature doesn’t change that much, really.

A great read overall, and an interesting approach to the broad cultural background that is the Roman Empire. Totally worth the read; check it out.2

  1. Also, some mind-blowing discussion of the amount of unofficial merch that there was for the emperor; ‘the ancient equivalent of refrigerator magnets,’ locally-made stuff that made the emperor, a distant figure even for those living in Rome itself, very clearly match the same vibe we have for the British royal family, or just random celebrities, now. ↩
  2. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“Give Her Credit”

Grace L. Williams

I’m really on a kick of “books about people building something” of late! And this one gets bonus points for being nonfiction, so the thing that got built really got built, which is even more fun.

“Give Her Credit” is a well-chosen title for a book about the opening of Women’s Bank in Denver, and the women who built it. It’s a cool piece of history, and touched on something I’d never really thought about: people, like, create banks. They aren’t all horrendously gigantic corporations that have existed since the 1800s! And, unsurprisingly for the banking industry, it’s a whole process to do.

I actually made it through this book in, basically, one sitting.1 It was pretty approachable! I was worried about how much sexism I was going to have to make my way through, because, again, this is a book about women opening a bank for women. In the 1970s. And the decades leading up to the 1970s. And boy, was there ever a lot of crap they were forced to go through, but the way the story was told managed to keep it from feeling overwhelming.

All in all, a good read about an interesting little corner of history. Worth a read; check it out.2

  1. Well, I moved from the couch to the counter so that I could eat dinner while reading, but other than that… ↩
  2. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
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Review

“The Dark Lord’s Daughter”

Patricia C. Wrede

Oh, this book is just, chef’s kiss, exactly what I was hoping it would be. It’s the magic of Wrede’s Enchanted Forest Chronicles, that delightful send-up of story tropes within the genre, but applied to isekai in the ‘fantasy world’ realm instead of the fantasy world alone.1 It also has an interesting twist on that in that it’s not just the main character who gets yoinked into Fantasy World – her mom and brother come along too, which worked really well to alleviate the underlying sense of loneliness that genre usually has.2

It also did a pretty good job at capturing that sense of building something that I love. Definitely in less detail; this is a young adult book after all, and spending several pages talking about, like, staffing logistics would’ve gone over like a lead balloon, but the amount of it that’s present felt just right.

All in all, this was a really fun book to read. My only complaint is that the note it ends on feels like the end of the pilot episode of a TV series; I want to see more of this world, learn more about how the magic works, all that.3 There’s a whole lot of threads set up that aren’t abandoned, per se, but also clearly don’t come to anything within this book. I suppose I’ll have to wait for the sequel. In the meantime, however, I absolutely recommend it; check it out.4

  1. I can’t believe I just added an “isekai” tag to my blog. ↩
  2. A lot of isekai stories seem like they’re trying to avoid addressing that, or talk up how much of a loner the protagonist was before it all happened, but that’s not less lonely. Humans are social animals! We’re meant to be part of a tribe, of a society. Slicing off someone’s entire support network all at once is gonna do some damage. ↩
  3. Particularly since the magic has some clear bridging notes to how computers work, and boy am I ever a sucker for a hard magic system that’s computer-science-flavored. ↩
  4. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“Unruly”

David Mitchell

From right at the beginning of the first chapter:

England was a word that gradually gained currency, like mansplain or staycation, and it was fully in use by the time William the Conquerer was king of it. I expect you’ve heard of him. Most people know that, in 1606, William the Conquerer (not at that point so named) won the Battle of Hastings and became king of England. When it comes to the likely readership of this book, that ‘most’ must rise to ‘all’. If there is anyone reading this book who didn’t already know that, I would love to hear from you because you are genuinely reading in a genre that was previously of no interest. You, if you exist, and I bet you don’t, are an absolute confounder of the algorithms.It would be like someone reading a biography of Elvis Presley who did not already know that he was a singer. What you are doing is probably more statistically remarkable than what William the Conquerer did. (14)

I have exciting news for the author about the level of knowledge I had about British history coming in to this book! To whit, none; I grabbed it specifically because I don’t know anything about the topic and have been wanting to learn more.

This feels very approachable and very British; it’s like Cunk on Britain in written form, and taking itself marginally more seriously. Also, notably uncensored, as the chapter on Cnut covered.1 I will admit, here at the end of the book, that I don’t know that I’ve retained much detail, but I wasn’t really expecting to — the point of reading this was that I knew nothing about British history, and wanted to have at least some broad-strokes vague ideas, not that I was trying to make a career pivot into ‘historian.’ So I think that’s alright. And I wouldn’t be a great historian, particularly British historian, as my level of attention to details like “which number Elizabeth was that” is such that I was very surprised that the book ended after Elizabeth I. It says, right on the cover, “A tale of power, glory, and gore from Arthur to Elizabeth I,” and I was still expecting it to carry on all the way up to the death of Elizabeth II. Whoops.

Anyhow, for the goal of “a broad overview and an entertaining read,” this absolutely delivered. If you’re interested, give it a go.2

  1. If you can’t guess what sorts of jokes were made throughout, I don’t know how to be more clear. ↩
  2. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“A City on Mars”

Kelly Weinersmith and Zach Weinersmith

The Weinersmiths once again knock it out of the park; they’re truly some of the best pop-science writers out there.

A City on Mars is an overview of, basically, the entire concept of “can and should we be trying to colonize Mars?” And, unlike the many, many blog posts out there where people say “yes!” and then excitedly talk about the Sabatier reaction, they spend a lot more time talking about the very real challenges. And, yes, a lot of that is the scientific — rockets are big, expensive, complicated machines! Biology is weird and we have literally no idea what happens to people if they spend as much time in microgravity as would be necessary to get to Mars, much less the amount of time they’d spend living in the lower-gravity environment of Mars (or the moon).1 But what this book touches on that I think a lot of other media on the subject ignores is the law. Like, we know Elon likes to hand-wave away regulation, and every libertarian fantasizes about living in space where there’s no government, but that’s… not actually how it works?2 Like, if you get filmed committing a murder in international waters, it’s still a murder, and you can and will be prosecuted for it, there’ll just be an awkward phase at the beginning of the trial where your lawyer argues with the prosecution about which specific jurisdiction you’re going to be tried in.

Overall, quite an interesting read; you’ll learn a lot more about international law than you probably know, and it’s a fun book all the way through. Well worth it. Check it out!3

  1. Like, maybe after two consecutive years of living in microgravity, you start aging backwards? It’s not likely, but nobody has checked. More realistically are the questions like “the thing where being in space screws up your eyes, does that keep getting worse over time? Does anything go wrong in your brain if it’s not getting pulled into shape by gravity? Can people even get pregnant in space?” Again, things that nobody has gotten around to testing. Oftentimes for good reason, but still. ↩
  2. Note: I’m writing this in early January of 2025. Elon may yet become god-emperor, in which case, my argument here is partially moot. ↩
  3. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Playlist

Playlist of the Month: December 2025

You may notice a certain theme to the end of this playlist. That theme is I wanted it to feel like Christmas this year, and I successfully achieved that through musical saturation. Made more effective because, after years of being A Choir Kid, it’s not just hearing Christmas music that makes it feel like Christmastime to me, it’s singing it—and thus, lots of choral/a cappella versions.

As usual, you can listen to the whole playlist here or see the track list and commentary below. (I’m trying something a little different with the commentary formatting this time—hopefully it’s a little easier to scan through.)

Oklahoma Smokeshow – Zach Bryan on Summertime Blues – EP

Hotel Bible – Max McNown on Night Diving

Medusa – Cameron Whitcomb on Medusa – Single

Options – Cameron Whitcomb on Clean Country 2025

Azalea Place – Max McNown on Night Diving

St. Helens Alpenglow – Max McNown on St. Helens Alpenglow – Single

Flicker – Yoste on Flicker – Single

Livin’ Missing You – Hayden Blount on Livin’ Missing You – Single

American Trail – Dylan Gossett on Westward

Normal Day – Brendan Walter on Normal Day – Single

Space in My Heart (Original Version) – Enrique Iglesias on Space in My Heart (Original Version) – Single

Sea Shanty Medley – Home Free on Sea Shanty Medley – Single

The Barn – Landon Smith on The Barn – Single

Loud and Heavy – Cody Jinks on Adobe Sessions

Did What You Did – Noah Brigden on Bad Habits – EP

Life’s Worth Living – Nick Folwarczny on Life’s Worth Living – Single

Dale Dickens (RIP) – Cooper Alan on Dale Dickens (RIP) – Single

Cold Shoulder – Zach John King on Slow Down – EP

Life Behind Bars – Zach John King & Bayker Blankenship on Life Behind Bars – Single

Man of the Year – Sam Barber on Man of the Year – Single

Bowery (feat. Kings of Leon) – Zach Bryan on Bowery (feat. Kings of Leon) – Single

HIGHWAY KIND – Fabrizio on HIGHWAY KIND – Single

Space – Zach John King on Space – Single

Dust and Smoke – Sam Barber on Music for the Soul

808 HYMN – Erin LeCount on 808 HYMN – Single

CATHEDRAL. – Kesha on .

Gun To My Head – HARDY on COUNTRY! COUNTRY!

Music for the Soul – Sam Barber on Music for the Soul

Luckiest Man Alive – HARDY on COUNTRY! COUNTRY!

American Vintage – Aidan Canfield on American Vintage – Single

Cheap Shots – Ian Harrison on Cheap Shots – Single

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald – Home Free on Challenge the Sea

Bedrooms In The Sky – HARDY & Stephen Wilson Jr. on COUNTRY! COUNTRY!

Lose A Friend – Evan Honer on Everything I Wanted

The Gold – Manchester Orchestra on A Black Mile To The Surface

Later Tonight – Josh Ross on Later Tonight

Old White Lincoln – The Gaslight Anthem on The ’59 Sound

Storytime – Majik on Blood, Sweat & Tears

Road to Gold – Luke Beling on The Good Side of Somewhere – EP

Oh! The Anxiety – Joe Jordan on Oh! The Anxiety – EP

Baptized By Rain – Dylan Gossett on Westward

Drift Away – Orville Peck on Appaloosa

Leave Her Johnny – Home Free on Challenge the Sea

nah – Khalid on after the sun goes down

Undone (The Bonfire Sessions) – Sons of Habit on The Sticks (The Bonfire Sessions) – EP

We’re Onto Something (feat. Zach Bryan) – Kings of Leon on We’re Onto Something (feat. Zach Bryan) – Single

Wish You Well – Vincent Mason on There I Go

Facilita – Fred again.., Caribou & Menor Teteu on Facilita – Single

Hardwired – Fabrizio on Hardwired – Single

Lonely Man (One Take Acoustic) – Cody Jinks on Lonely Man (One Take Acoustic) – Single

Skull and Bones (2025 Version) – Home Free on Challenge the Sea

Berghain – ROSALÍA, Björk & Yves Tumor on LUX

Something Wicked This Way Comes – Cody Jinks on In My Blood

The Parting Glass – Home Free on Challenge the Sea

Foolish Pride – Slater Nalley on Foolish Pride – Single

My Side Of Town – Josh Ross on Later Tonight

Bonnie Ship the Diamond – Home Free on Challenge the Sea

HARDSTYLE 2 – Fred again.., KETTAMA & Shady Nasty on HARDSTYLE 2 – Single

Mingulay Boat Song – Home Free on Challenge the Sea

Santiana – Home Free on Challenge the Sea

Bottled Up Inside – Harrison Storm on Empty Garden

Holiday Road – Kesha on Holiday Road – Single

Wave – Yoste on Wave – Single

Shovel – Tyler Nance on Shovel – Single

Sunflower – Amber Run on Sunflower – Single

Roots – Cooper Alan on Winston – Salem

Challenge the Sea (feat. The Longest Johns) – Home Free on Challenge the Sea

WTF (the f**k) – Gracie and Rachel & Elliot Moss on WTF (the f**k) – Single

Human – Brandi Carlile on Returning To Myself

Magnolias – ROSALÍA on LUX

Got It All Wrong – Peech. on Small Town America (Vol. 1) – EP

Atchafalaya (feat. Noah Cyrus) – Orville Peck on Appaloosa

My Side of the Mountain – Orville Peck on Appaloosa

Te Amo – Rihanna on Rated R

O Come, All Ye Faithful – Pentatonix on A Pentatonix Christmas

God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen – Pentatonix on A Pentatonix Christmas

Coventry Carol – Pentatonix on A Pentatonix Christmas

I think this one is my favorite Christmas song this year, which is a bit odd, but boy, do I have fun listening to some of the harmonies. Those open fifths, mmmmm.

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing – Pentatonix on That’s Christmas To Me

White Winter Hymnal – Pentatonix on That’s Christmas To Me

That’s Christmas To Me – Pentatonix on That’s Christmas To Me

Mary, Did You Know? – Pentatonix on That’s Christmas To Me

The First Noel – Pentatonix on That’s Christmas to Me: Deluxe Tracks – EP

Little Drummer Boy – Pentatonix on The Greatest Christmas Hits

Carol of the Bells – Pentatonix on The Greatest Christmas Hits

Deck The Halls – Pentatonix on The Greatest Christmas Hits

J&L – Medium Build on takeaways

A quick break from the Christmas vibes here, and this one is, lyrically, something of a gut-punch to me.

Pipe Dream – Brendan Walter on Disappearing Days

I enjoyed the cinematography of the music video for this one.

Blueneck (Acoustic) – Chris Housman on Blueneck (Acoustic) – Single

Honestly, I think I added this originally because I was conflating with the artist Blueneck, who make music that sounds like being alone in the depths of winter, and have been known to show up in my December playlists. Instead, I’ve got this piece, which feels like… an earnest take on Bo Burnham’s Pandering.

O Come, All Ye Faithful – Home Free on Any Kind of Christmas

O’ Holy Night – Home Free on Full Of Cheer (Deluxe)

White Sand Christmas – Jake Slaton on White Sand Christmas – Single

A non-traditional insertion, but I’ve been enjoying it.

Do You Hear What I Hear? – Home Free on Full Of Cheer (Deluxe)

Silver Bells – Pentatonix on Christmas in the City

73 Fair – Noah James on 73 Fair – Single

Talk to You – Sam Fender & Elton John on People Watching (Deluxe Edition)

Similar to J&L above in terms of hitting too hard.

The Hanging Tree – James Newton Howard on The Hunger Games – Mockingjay Pt. 1 (Original Motin Picture Score)

Categories
Review

“Legends & Lattes”

Travis Baldree

I’d been putting off reading this one because I wasn’t sold on the entire “cozy fantasy” genre. I did actually try reading another one at some point, and it just didn’t click for me — I think it leaned too far into the ‘cozy’, and the result was me spending the entire book on tenterhooks, waiting for the other shoe to drop, and it never did. Legends & Lattes didn’t have that issue — there was enough of a story arc, enough narrative tensions, some clear “there’s a Bad Person who Is A Problem” moments that I could settle into the story instead of trying to figure out what I was missing.

I really wasn’t prepared for how well this would grab me; I went down to Powell’s intending to pick up a specific book, saw this on one of the “on sale!” displays, and grabbed it to read the first chapter in the cafe to decide if it was for me. And then suddenly I had finished chapter 18 and I needed to pay for my books and head home.1

“Cozy fantasy” is a very specific genre, and now I’m wondering if there’s a term for the other thing this book did incredibly well and that I absolutely love: that feeling of building something. It’s in the Moist von Lipwig books, it’s in Kitty Cat Kill Sat, heck, it’s what makes Cities Skylines so fun. That feeling that something is being created. It doesn’t have to be something grand; honestly, it’s often better when it isn’t. A coffee shop is the right scale here; it’s something that feels real, that feels concrete. That feels achievable. That is the thing I truly loved about this book.

So, hey, I am thoroughly late to the party, but this was a really wonderful read. Pick up a copy, sit in a coffee shop, and do some reading.2

  1. By the time I got home, I was on chapter 21. Public transit: it’s great! You can read and someone else pays attention to the road so you don’t have to! ↩
  2. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
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Review

“The Lost Story”

Meg Shaffer

Something like fifty pages in, I had to put the book down and go check the Goodreads page – I just needed to know if it was tagged ‘LGBTQ,’ because if it wasn’t, that would’ve been some She Who Must Not Be Named-level “creating chemistry between two same-sex characters and then resolutely ignoring it to cram in a straight romance,” and I just didn’t have it in me to deal with it. Fortunately, the tag was there, so I could go back to reading, and I’m so glad I did.

This… is a story about stories. The storyteller occasionally pauses the action to speak directly to the reader, and those little pauses are used to great effect. It’s taking the tropes of fairy tales and playing with them, taking the familiar shapes of those stories and asking us what else, what more, what happens in the happily ever after? And what else happened in the unhappily before? What else went on around the fairy tale, to enable the story to go the way it did? What if the story was incomplete?

And the storytelling is, again, excellent; the bulk of the plot was a touch predictable, but the characters were all so fun that I didn’t particularly mind, and that main plot ended far enough before I ran out of book that there was some fun tension in wondering what else was going to happen. The obvious Big Bad was defeated, but… what else?1 What more? Plus, some fun use of literary devices; a lot of this alludes to the Chronicles of Narnia, but I think my favorite “look at me, I remember things from English class!” moment was the realization that, halfway through the book, the flashback to one character’s pillow-talk conversation about wormholes, that had been a Chekhov’s Gun. Absolutely delightful.

Overall, my review is thus: my friend loaned me this book a while ago, and I hadn’t yet gotten to it, but was prompted to move it up the list when someone else asked to borrow her copy. “I can probably get that to you by the next time I see you,” I said, knowing it was a week and change away. I finished my current read during my lunch break on Thursday, got home, cracked open The Lost Story… and finished it Thursday night. And now, as I go to look up the Bookshop link, I’m ordering myself a copy.2 That’s how much I loved this book.

  1. And by “obvious Big Bad” I don’t mean “obviously this Bad Guy was the Big Bad,” I mean “the identity of the Big Bad was obvious,” but again: doesn’t really detract from the story. The mystery wasn’t the key thing, it was just a touch of dramatic tension as the reader figures it out well before the characters. ↩
  2. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
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Review

“Radical Acceptance”

Tara Brach

This was a “wandering around Powell’s” find, and I picked it up, read the first line of the back, and accepted immediately that I was going to buy the book.

“Believing that something is wrong with us is a deep and tenacious suffering,” says Tara Brach at the start of this illuminating book.

Frankly, I didn’t even make it to the end of the sentence; just the quote was striking enough. It is, indeed, a deep and tenacious suffering; it’s something I’ve struggled with a great deal in my life, and keep coming back to, time and again.

For the most part, the book continued in that “this is about you, personally” kind of feeling as I read it. I suppose it is, at bare minimum, somewhat validating to hear that I’m not the only one who falls into these patterns? And it’s hopeful, to read through the standard self-help-book anecdotes about someone who had a problem, and how, with the help of the author, they were able to address it. And, honestly, bonus points for not promising to fix the problem, just address it; if the claim had been “follow these three simple steps and you’ll be cured forever!” I’d be rolling my eyes and tossing the book aside, but it’s willing to admit that the problem will remain. It doesn’t solve the problem, it addresses it; it teaches you ways to manage it, to keep it from overwhelming you, to work through it.

I’ll admit to having drifted off a bit towards the end, where the book started to shift from “meditation and psychology” into “spiritualism and Buddhism,” because I’m not exactly one for spiritualism or religion. But I’m already planning to reread this at some point in the future, so who knows, maybe once I’ve spent some time applying the earlier chapters, I’ll be more receptive to the latter ones?

Anyhow, just for the way it grabbed me, and how effectively it held on, I have to recommend this one. It was well worth the read, and I filled pages and pages of my notebook. Give it a go.1

  1. This is an Amazon affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I prefer Bookshop affiliate links to Amazon when possible, but in this case, the book wasn’t available there, so it’ll have to do. ↩
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Review

“A Death at the Dionysus Club”

Melissa Scott & Amy Griswold

It’s been long enough since I read the first book in this series that I remembered basically nothing about the magic system, but I picked it up again well enough over the course of the book.1 Probably would’ve helped to recall how the protagonists’ relationship got started, as well, but I think this one did reasonably well at exploring it that I felt caught up again by the end.

It is, once again, a Holmes-ian story, but in this case I think it has less to do with characters falling into the archetypes and more to do with just being a Victorian-era murder mystery featuring people working with but not for Scotland Yard. I did want to shake the protagonists a bit, because they continually ignored the incredibly obvious suspect—to the point that the should’ve-been-a-suspect, himself, called them out on it.

Overall, though, I found it to be a remarkably fun romp. A good little hint of horror in places, because “the killer is using magic” adds a nice “you can’t see them coming” aspect at times. Worth the read; check it out.2

  1. Long enough ago that I was still doing subtitles on these posts! ↩
  2. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Playlist

Playlist of the Month: November 2025

While I made some solid progress on clearing out the backlog of music I’d saved to listen to later, the resulting monthly playlist is longer than usual, and I feel like I haven’t done as much listening through it as I’d like. Tough, when the thing is nearly 8 hours long, whoops.

Listen to the full thing here, or get individual tracks and occasional comments below:

Oklahoma Smokeshow – Zach Bryan on Summertime Blues – EP

Hotel Bible – Max McNown on Night Diving

Medusa – Cameron Whitcomb on Medusa – Single

Options – Cameron Whitcomb on Clean Country 2025

Azalea Place – Max McNown on Night Diving

St. Helens Alpenglow – Max McNown on St. Helens Alpenglow – Single

Flicker – Yoste on Flicker – Single

Take Me Away (Stripped) – Noah Brigden on Take Me Away (Stripped) – Single

Livin’ Missing You – Hayden Blount on Livin’ Missing You – Single

American Trail – Dylan Gossett on Westward

Normal Day – Brendan Walter on Normal Day – Single

Space in My Heart (Original Version) – Enrique Iglesias on Space in My Heart (Original Version) – Single

Bloodline – Alex Warren & Jelly Roll on Bloodline – Single

Sea Shanty Medley – Home Free on Sea Shanty Medley – Single

The Barn – Landon Smith on The Barn – Single

Loud and Heavy – Cody Jinks on Adobe Sessions

Did What You Did – Noah Brigden on Bad Habits – EP

Life’s Worth Living – Nick Folwarczny on Life’s Worth Living – Single

Dale Dickens (RIP) – Cooper Alan on Dale Dickens (RIP) – Single

Shadowverse – The Midnight on Syndicate

Cold Shoulder – Zach John King on Slow Down – EP

Life Behind Bars – Zach John King & Bayker Blankenship on Life Behind Bars – Single

Man of the Year – Sam Barber on Man of the Year – Single

Bowery (feat. Kings of Leon) – Zach Bryan on Bowery (feat. Kings of Leon) – Single

HIGHWAY KIND – Fabrizio on HIGHWAY KIND – Single

Space – Zach John King on Space – Single

The Vulture and the Little Boy – Bukahara on Canaries in a Coal Mine

Dust and Smoke – Sam Barber on Music for the Soul

808 HYMN – Erin LeCount on 808 HYMN – Single

Hangin’ On – Dylan Gossett on Westward

Nobody’s Famous In Hell – Waves_On_Waves, Crimewave & Waves On Waves After Dark on Nobody’s Famous In Hell – Single

CATHEDRAL. – Kesha on .

Gun To My Head – HARDY on COUNTRY! COUNTRY!

Hard to Break – Blake Whiten on Hard to Break – Single

Music for the Soul – Sam Barber on Music for the Soul

BerwynGesaffNeighbours – Fred again.. & BERWYN on USB

Luckiest Man Alive – HARDY on COUNTRY! COUNTRY!

Seventeen Going Under – Sam Fender on Seventeen Going Under (Deluxe)

American Vintage – Aidan Canfield on American Vintage – Single

Cheap Shots – Ian Harrison on Cheap Shots – Single

The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald – Home Free on Challenge the Sea

Bedrooms In The Sky – HARDY & Stephen Wilson Jr. on COUNTRY! COUNTRY!

Comfort in Misery – Buffalo Traffic Jam on Comfort in Misery – Single

Lose A Friend – Evan Honer on Everything I Wanted

When You Were Young (Track Star Presents) – Jack Van Cleaf on JVC (Deluxe Edition)

The Gold – Manchester Orchestra on A Black Mile To The Surface

Later Tonight – Josh Ross on Later Tonight

Long Island – The Midnight on Syndicate

Old White Lincoln – The Gaslight Anthem on The ’59 Sound

Storytime – Majik on Blood, Sweat & Tears

Road to Gold – Luke Beling on The Good Side of Somewhere – EP

Oh! The Anxiety – Joe Jordan on Oh! The Anxiety – EP

Baptized By Rain – Dylan Gossett on Westward

Drift Away – Orville Peck on Appaloosa

Leave Her Johnny – Home Free on Challenge the Sea

Spinning – Chance Peña on When I Change My Mind I Don’t Mean It

Digital Dreams – The Midnight on Syndicate

nah – Khalid on after the sun goes down

Lungs – Fabrizio on Lungs – Single

Teardrop – Elderbrook & Jan Blomqvist on Teardrop – Single

Drive You Home – Waves_On_Waves, Castles Made Of Sky & Waves On Waves Orange Crush on Drive You Home – Single

Windy City – Dylan Gossett on Westward (Deluxe)1

Aftercare – Imogen Heap & ai.mogen on Aftercare – Single

Undone (The Bonfire Sessions) – Sons of Habit on The Sticks (The Bonfire Sessions) – EP

We’re Onto Something (feat. Zach Bryan) – Kings of Leon on We’re Onto Something (feat. Zach Bryan) – Single

Bad Morphine – Arcade Beach on Music for Night Drives

erase me (feat. Jacob Collier) – Lizzy McAlpine on five seconds flat

Wish You Well – Vincent Mason on There I Go

No One Has to Know – Bob Moses on BLINK

Facilita – Fred again.., Caribou & Menor Teteu on Facilita – Single2

Mother – Tyler, The Creator on CHROMAKOPIA +

The End of Eurydice – Vincent Lima on To Love A Thing That Fades

Hardwired – Fabrizio on Hardwired – Single

hate to be lame (feat. FINNEAS) – Lizzy McAlpine on five seconds flat

Better Broken – Bob Moses on BLINK

Lonely Man (One Take Acoustic) – Cody Jinks on Lonely Man (One Take Acoustic) – Single

Skull and Bones (2025 Version) – Home Free on Challenge the Sea3

Berghain – ROSALÍA, Björk & Yves Tumor on LUX4

Wild One – Madeline Megery on Wild One – Single

The Good Side of Somewhere – Luke Beling & T.F. Jennings on The Good Side of Somewhere – EP

Livin’ The Dream – Dylan Gossett on Westward

Slip Away – Nils Hoffmann & SILÖ on Everlight

Maybe For Once – Evan Honer on Everything I Wanted

Something Wicked This Way Comes – Cody Jinks on In My Blood5

The Parting Glass – Home Free on Challenge the Sea6

Foolish Pride – Slater Nalley on Foolish Pride – Single

It’s Not Your Fault – Max McNown on Night Diving (The Cost of Growing Up)

My Side Of Town – Josh Ross on Later Tonight7

Bonnie Ship the Diamond – Home Free on Challenge the Sea

Howl At The Moon – Noah James & Anna Rae on The Tracks – EP

Don’t Give Up On Me – Noah Rinker on The Pines – EP

HARDSTYLE 2 – Fred again.., KETTAMA & Shady Nasty on USB

Who Don’t – HARDY on COUNTRY! COUNTRY! COUNTRY!

Old Town Road (feat. Billy Ray Cyrus) [Remix] – Lil Nas X on 7 – EP

Heavenly – Chance Peña on When I Change My Mind I Don’t Mean It

Mingulay Boat Song – Home Free on Challenge the Sea8

Santiana – Home Free on Challenge the Sea

Once More – Waves_On_Waves, Sonic Shades Of Blue & Waves On Waves Orange Crush on Emotions In Every Color

Bottled Up Inside – Harrison Storm on Empty Garden9

La Rumba Del Perdón – ROSALÍA, Estrella Morente & Sílvia Pérez Cruz on LUX

Sauvignon Blanc – ROSALÍA on LUX

Holiday Road – Kesha on Holiday Road – Single10

Mine to Hold – Bob Moses on BLINK

Divinize – ROSALÍA on LUX

Deeper Talks – Joe Jordan on Deeper Talks – Single11

We Never Left The Sunset – Tyrian84 on Exhale

Roses and Wolves (feat. Hailey Whitters) – Max McNown on Night Diving (The Cost of Growing Up)

Wave – Yoste on Wave – Single

I’ll Be There – Nick Folwarczny on I’ll Be There – Single

Shovel – Tyler Nance on Shovel – Single

Reliquia – ROSALÍA on LUX

Mio Cristo Piange Diamanti – ROSALÍA on LUX

I Want You – In Color on Snow Day – EP

Sunflower – Amber Run on Sunflower – Single12

Roots – Cooper Alan on Winston – Salem

Challenge the Sea (feat. The Longest Johns) – Home Free on Challenge the Sea

Fool’s Gold – Buffalo Traffic Jam on Take Me Home – EP

WTF (the f**k) – Gracie and Rachel & Elliot Moss on WTF (the f**k) – Single

Human – Brandi Carlile on Returning To Myself13

Memória – ROSALÍA & Carminho on LUX

Magnolias – ROSALÍA on LUX

Hotel Dorado – Maxx Parker on Infinite Blue: Golden Hour14

Got It All Wrong – Peech. on Small Town America (Vol. 1) – EP

Atchafalaya (feat. Noah Cyrus) – Orville Peck on Appaloosa

Maybe This Time – Orville Peck on Appaloosa15

My Side of the Mountain – Orville Peck on Appaloosa

Te Amo – Rihanna on Rated R16

  1. One of those “I love this but I can’t keep it” songs, because it’s just… heart-wrenching, in tone ↩
  2. Pretty different vibe from almost everything else in this list, but an absolute banger ↩
  3. Absolutely gorgeous bass line ↩
  4. well of course it’s Björk on the most delightfully weird entry in this album ↩
  5. I’m vaguely aware that the second part of the Wicked film is out now, and I choose to believe that this is a hilariously subtle marketing tie-in. ↩
  6. I still kinda want Parting Glass to be faster than Home Free’s take, but it’s a great version nonetheless. ↩
  7. A good one to sing along to. ↩
  8. The pinnacle of “Home Free makes me sing along and miss being in choir.” ↩
  9. oof ouch my bones ↩
  10. I think this might be entirely winter-holiday-agnostic, and yet it does a great job of capturing that Christmas Song vibe. I love it. ↩
  11. A lot of my taste in country music has been “soft boys singing about being in love,” but I think this one best captures that actual feeling, for me. ↩
  12. Excited to see something new from Amber Run, they’ve done a string of re-releases prior to this, which is… something, but not as good as actual new music. ↩
  13. Watched her performance on SNL with family, which is maybe the first time I’ve watched an entire episode of SNL? I felt like I’d suddenly been given a much better understanding of an entire generation of liberals. ↩
  14. I should see if Maxx Parker is actually creating the music videos to go with these, because if he is, this man is really out here slow-rolling the release of a new 80s movie. ↩
  15. I really want to like this one, because it’s the sort of hope-punk lyrics I ought to be shoving into my brain, but I think I’ve only managed to listen to it all the way through without skipping, like, twice. ↩
  16. Brought in because something about Facilita reminds me of Rihanna.
    Anyhow, I dealt myself several points of psychic damage the day I added this by looking at some of Rihanna’s release dates and realizing that there are kids getting their learner’s permits now who were conceived to the hot new Rihanna single, S&M. This is, like, probably the line at which “music I grew up listening to” starts counting as “oldies,” isn’t it? ↩
Categories
Review

“Kitty Cat Kill Sat”

Argus

I loved this book. Struggled with it in a couple places—you can, at times, really tell that it was originally written as serialized fiction. But even those bits of “wait, you forgot about-“ kinda make sense within the world of the story. Lily is a 400-year-old housecat who uplifted herself, the ADHD shouldn’t really be a surprise.

The story arc of this book is a really touching found family kind of thing, which always gets to me to some degree, but where it really shone was in the worldbuilding. I think I understand the Warhammer people a bit better now.

In short, this book is set after the sci-fi. It’s, like, 15,000 years in the future. Civilization has collapsed. Civilization has, in fact, collapsed, rebuilt, risen, and collapsed again, dozens of times over. Lily is an immortal, uplifted cat, who wound up inheriting command of the space station that’s the best of the best, a mostly self-repairing, spectacularly heavily-armed orbital installation. She mostly fills her time by providing close artillery support to the deserving down on Earth, amongst other things like “using a low-powered orbital laser to guide a semi-sentient cloud of mind control chemicals away from population centers.” 15,000 years of sci-fi tech is a lot of time to build horrific weapons, and AIs that go a little nuts, and generally every other sci-fi story arc you can imagine. It’s a little reminiscent of Fine Structure in that way.

So—and this terrible pun is both intended and premeditated—this book is catnip to me. All the sci-fi, and found family? And it’s about a cat? How could I not love it? Please, give it a read.1

  1. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩
Categories
Review

“Avatar, the Last Airbender”: Various Comics

Gene Luen Yang, Gurihiru, Michael Heisler Faith Erin Hicks, Bryan Koneitzko, Michael Dante DiMartino, Peter Wartman, Adele Matera

This started off as a series of reviews, one-by-one, and then I realized that I was doing each one in very short form, and it felt better as an omnibus post instead. I’ll go ahead and drop my disclaimer here: these are Bookshop affiliate links, so if you buy the book after clicking on them, I’ll get a wee little commission. Less of a commission than your local bookstore gets from each Bookshop purchase, though, because they’ve got their priorities in the right order. Seriously, buy your books with Bookshop, not Amazon.

“Smoke and Shadow”

Skipping around a bit, apparently—it seems that I read the first couple of Avatar comics, but missed the conclusion of Zuko’s search for his mother, so there’s a lot going on here that I wasn’t aware of.

I’m continuing to enjoy the way that these comics expand the series into topics that don’t fit quite as well in the show. In this case, it’s… the invention of domestic terrorism? Yowza.

This one was a weird vibe compared to the Korra comics. An interesting read, sure, but… weird.

“North and South”

Yes, I am in a completionist mood for these comics, why do you ask?

Seems like we’re doing a “the Gaang learns about realpolitik” arc, here? Another round of domestic unrest, in the Southern Water Tribe this time, featuring xenophobia, a Saudi Arabia-level oil find, and a little bit of “what do you mean Hakoda went on a date?” from Katara.

Again, interesting to read, but, boy, this sure is a lot of events going on in not a lot of book.

“Imbalance”

It’s the origin story of Republic City! I really enjoyed this—it’s setting up some of the seeds of what’ll come up in the first season of Legend of Korra, and showing a bit more of how the city developed into what it is by her time. Really enjoyable bit of world-building; check it out.

“The Rift”

Further back into the origin story of Republic City! I’m reading these all sorts of out of order. I like the thought that there’s geological features that came from spirit intervention—in this case, a big ore deposit because a metal-themed spirit made their home in this place. A fun concept.

Categories
Review

“The Legend of Korra: Ruins of the Empire”

Bryan Koneitzko, Michael Dante DiMartino, Michelle Wong, Killian Ng

What was I gonna do, not read the next one? Don’t be silly.

This wasn’t quite as queer as Turf Wars, but I did still really enjoy it. Kuvira is a really interesting character, and seeing some of her backstory was super interesting. The redemption arc she was going through felt rushed, honestly, but it is, after all, a graphic novel, so the pacing is different than a prose novel.

I also really enjoyed touching on some of the broader-scale changes taking place in this world. Two geopolitical things going on at once, in overlapping territory: the collapse of what I viewed as a USSR-analogue,12 and the voluntary dissolution of the monarchy in a China-analogue, to be replaced with democratic elections. Both of which are messy, messy things; the fact that they’re happening in the same place makes it even more of a mess. Good luck, everyone!

For bonus points, they also pulled in some dangling threads from the previous series. Yeah, I get that the Gaang was horrified by Long Feng’s mind-control program and tossed it, but… a whole lot of Dai Lee knew how to do that mind-control trick. It was probably written down somewhere, too. That’s an awful lot of temptation for a ruler…

Another great expansion of the Avatar universe; also, absolutely worth the read. Check it out.3

  1. Mostly by dint of “Republic City is clearly a USA-analogue” and “season 4 was about the invention of nuclear weapons.” ↩
  2. Footnote on that footnote: if you think plutonium is unbalanced in our world, spirit weapons are bonkers in this universe. So, you take a certain vine, electrocute it, and then it’s a nuke? That’s all it takes? Oh, don’t worry, the vines can only be found in one giant mystical swamp in the middle of nowhere- oh, wait, they also grow everywhere in Central Park. This is probably fine.
    (The best take I’ve ever seen on this was in Repairs, Retrofits, and Upgrades, which I also recommend as a read.) ↩
  3. This is a Bookshop affiliate link – if you buy it from here, I get a little bit of commission. It won’t hurt my feelings if you buy it elsewhere; honestly, I’d rather you check it out from your local library, or go to a local book store. I use Bookshop affiliate links instead of Amazon because they distribute a significant chunk of their profits to small, local book stores. ↩