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2025 Bookish Superlatives, Part 1
I’m happy this morning to introduce my fourth annual Bookish Superlatives, highlighting books that excelled in different specific categories, but which may not have been among my very favourite reads of the year. Today’s post will focus on readerly expectation, media, and style. Tomorrow’s will turn to genres, audiences, and communities. Note: Because part of…
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2025 Bookish Stats
My 2025 reading year has come to a close. If you’re interested, please check back later this week for my Bookish Superlatives and Top Reads of the year. Today I’d like to look at the year as a whole and look at some statistics about some of the things I was looking out for this…
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2025 in Music
[This post is part of a large project in which I am going through the popular music released in each year. Please see the note at the bottom of the post re: omissions and limitations.] Introduction 2024 was an extraordinary year for pop music, so when 2025 started there was a big question of whether…
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2024 in Music
[This post is part of a large project in which I am going through the popular music released in each year. Please see the note at the bottom of the post re: omissions and limitations.] Introduction There are some years in popular music that, for whatever reason, stand out for their incredible, outsized impact: years…
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2023 in Music
[This post is part of a large project in which I am going through the popular music released in each year. Please see the note at the bottom of the post re: omissions and limitations.] Introduction When I was reviewing the music of 2023, what stood out to me was, on the whole, how balanced…
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2022 in Music
[This post is part of a large project in which I am going through the popular music released in each year. Please see the note at the bottom of the post re: omissions and limitations.] Introduction I mentioned in the first post in this series that one of the most surprising and fascinating things about…
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2021 in Music
[This post is part of a large project in which I am going through the popular music released in each year. Please see the note at the bottom of the post re: omissions and limitations.] Introduction It’s a testament to Taylor Swift’s huge presence that she can dominate the conversation in a year in which…
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Bookish Hall of Fame 2025, Part III: 28-1
This week, I’ve been updating my Bookish Hall of Fame to account for the books I read in 2024. (I redid the Hall of Fame in February and March, but never got around to posting the updates until now!) Part I discussed the Hall of Fame Emeritus books (i.e., those books that fell out of…
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Bookish Hall of Fame 2025, Part II: 72-29
Last time, I started my (long delayed) accounting of my updated Bookish Hall of Fame by talking about the Hall of Fame Emeritus books (i.e., those books that fell out of the top 100 but remain much beloved) and the ‘ground floor’ Hall books (100-73). Today I will go through the next two ‘floors’, accounting…
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Bookish Hall of Fame 2025, Part I: Emeritus and Books 100-75
One of the things that I didn’t do this year when this blog was dormant was update my Bookish Hall of Fame posts. For those who haven’t followed the blog from the beginning, this is my evolving list of my 100 favourite books of all time. So, with 2025’s reads knocking at the door, it’s…
Matt's Books and Music
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Matt's Books and Music 