Five of My Favorite Things in 2025
An on-brand gift guide
Here are five of my favorite things from this past year, all of which have helped make me the cheery misanthrope I am today. This list also doubles as a half-assed gift guide for your least favorite friends and most miserable family members.
1) S. A. Cosby Novels
If you're a fan of crime fiction, you've probably heard the name S.A. Cosby. He's a current heavyweight of the genre and just published his fifth novel, King of Ashes, in June. A few years back I read a nice profile of him in The New York Times, I very much enjoyed his recent interview with Brad Listi, and during my brief stint on TikTok the influencer crowd couldn't stop raving about the man. As an alleged Literary Bro, I figured I owed Mr. Cosby's work a look, so I stacked his five novels in chronological order and dug in. And boy has that been one of the better choices I've made this decade. Simply put, S. A. Cosby's novels are straight fire. They're all southern noirs set in rural Virginia, they all feature African American male protagonists with complex families and complicated pasts, they all mine thematically rich terrain (e.g., race relations in the south, modern masculinity, economic inequality, justice vs. morality) and, most important, they all read like James Cameron action flicks. I've thoroughly enjoyed each of Cosby's novels, but for my money All the Sinners Bleed is a cut above the rest.
2) Proton Mail
Do you hate Google as much as I do? If yes, congratulations on your character judging abilities! Do you also feel trapped in Google's clutches—and assume you have no choice but to sacrifice your priceless privacy and feed your precious data into their half-assed auto-complete algorithms? If also yes, I have just the prescription you need: Proton Mail. I switched to the Swiss-based, privacy-obsessed email provider this past spring—I wrote extensively about the process HERE—and I'm positively loving the experience. You can set up shop for free, but I subscribe to the Proton Unlimited tier, which for $120 per year allows users to create up to 15 unique email addresses and three custom email domains plus provides 500 GB of ultra-secure cloud storage, a password manager, VPN access, and more. Bonus: If you sign up using my referral link HERE, we'll both receive discounts.
3) The Criterion Channel
You know those serious films you've always wanted to watch, but haven't, because you're too busy fucking around on social media or bingeing Netflix trash instead? Well, they're all on The Criterion Channel, and once you subscribe you'll no longer have any excuse for being an uncultured simpleton. I absolutely love this streaming service, which includes a carefully curated selection of independent favorites, foreign gems, deep cuts, cult classics, and Hollywood hits teeming with substance as well as style. For example, over the past few months I've watched Robert Altman's The Player, Martin Scorsese's King of Comedy, Werner Herzog's Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, and Howard Hawke's Scarface. I also introduced my kids to John Carpenter via back-to-back screenings of Escape from New York and Escape from L.A., the latter of which my offspring agreed was "the best movie ever." Finally, if the films themselves weren't enough, the outstanding "Adventures in Moviegoing" series features famous actors and directors discussing how they cultivated their passion for cinema.
4) Coda Story Newsletters
Staffed by serious, truly independent journalists from around the globe, Coda Story's newsletters combine deep reporting and superb storytelling to illuminate the important trends which are transforming—and mostly destroying—our planet. From detailing the political abuses of authoritarians, to tracking the illicit money flows of oligarchs, to revealing the deeply cynical business practices of Big Tech, Coda Story cuts through the bullshit and explains what's really going on in the world. Spoiler Alert: Things are much, much worse than you realize. While I concede these newsletters make for grim reading, they're among the most informative and best written around. You can subscribe to each for free—my personal favorite is Moneyland author Oliver Bullough's Oligarchy—but I'm happy to report I recently became a paid member to support the organization's excellent, and vital, work.
5) Spotify
Nearly six years ago, after Spotify paid Joe Rogan a shit-ton of money to fan the flames of global incompetence, I dumped the service in favor of Apple Music, which I considered the lesser of two evils. What's happened since? Spearheaded by Tim Cuck's total capitulation, Apple has fully embraced its destiny as a feckless corporate villain. And pretty much every facet of human existence has gotten shittier as well. But, most heinous of all, when Hades II came out in September, for some ungodly reason the game's incredible soundtrack was not available on Apple Music. This aggression I could not abide, so I re-upped on Spotify and, as much as this pains me to say, the product's pretty damn slick. Housing music and podcasts under the same roof beats the hell out of dicking around with Apple's obtuse apps, while the nascent option to stream up to 15 hours of audiobooks per month vastly increases Spotify's value proposition. Lately I've been supplementing my Audible addiction with Spotify, and I'm increasingly intrigued by the platform's potential as a distribution vehicle for fiction. For example, rather than shelling out $30 for a brand-new hardcover of my kickass novel Leverage (see below!), Spotify Premium subscribers can listen to Shawn K. Jain's outstanding performance for no additional cost. Royalty revenue remains a mathematical impossibility for me, so if you haven't yet read my incredible, amazing, and timely novel—a CrimeReads Best Book of 2025!—click the following link to add Leverage to your library:
