Best of 2025
Dec. 31st, 2025 04:26 pmGlossing over the bad bits of the year, here are my highlights.
No food and drink award this year.
Honourable mentions for:
The Noh Mask Murder and The Midnight Library (fiction); Sapiens and Logopolis (The Black Archive) (non-fiction); Red Priest at Reading Town Hall (unblogged), Hesperion XXI at the Barbican, and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra at the Proms (music); and Hiroshige at the British Museum, the Willy Brandt Haus at Lubeck, the Komponenistenquartier at Hamburg and the Kunsthalle at Bremen, and the Doctor Who exhibition at Peterborough Museum (unblogged) (exhibitions).
May 2026 be an improvement. Easier in some ways than others.
- Fiction – The Bullet that Missed, by Richard Osman
- Non-fiction – The Primacy of Doubt, by Tim Palmer
- Music – Bizet and Saint-Saëns at the Proms
- Film, TV and Theatre – The Thursday Murder Club
- Museums, Exhibitions and Visits – Beyond Ravilious at Dulwich Picture Gallery
No food and drink award this year.
Honourable mentions for:
The Noh Mask Murder and The Midnight Library (fiction); Sapiens and Logopolis (The Black Archive) (non-fiction); Red Priest at Reading Town Hall (unblogged), Hesperion XXI at the Barbican, and the Leipzig Gewandhaus Orchestra at the Proms (music); and Hiroshige at the British Museum, the Willy Brandt Haus at Lubeck, the Komponenistenquartier at Hamburg and the Kunsthalle at Bremen, and the Doctor Who exhibition at Peterborough Museum (unblogged) (exhibitions).
May 2026 be an improvement. Easier in some ways than others.