This year overflowed with compelling narratives and groundbreaking innovations

(A list of my favorites, in no particular order)

This post is meant to provide comfort and point the way to joy.

Okay, it’s just my top recommendations from 2025. But I am passionate about these things. I hope you will be too.

Notwithstanding the efforts of nefarious forces to bring our society into some nonsense version that benefits them, the world continues to be messy and gleaming. Let’s keep up fight for self-determination, sanity, and individual sovereignty.

Lisa’s list:

• The book When God Was a Woman by Merlin Stone. This work of anthropological research was published in 1976, but like many others I discovered it only this year. It makes the compelling case that prior to the establishment of the religions that dominate our culture, people all over Europe, Anatolia, and the Mediterranean shared versions of an ancient goddess cult so universal that many of the stories found in our sacred books were specifically meant as weapons of her destruction. This book should be required reading. It explains so much of what is happening now, the Patriarchy, and the myths that bind it.

• This one you probably already know. Historian Heather Cox Richardson. If, like me, you took AP American Studies and have watched in horror as our government has devolved into a violent mosh pit of those who seemingly did not and thus don’t understand the traditions they seek to re-animate or the checks and balances required to keep our nation whole, Heather Cox Richardson is the antidote. In calm, considered daily letters, her perspective is equal parts civics lesson and grounding in sanity. If you aren’t already on board, she can be found on Substack, YouTube, and TikTok.

• Dying For Sex is a limited FX series about a woman with terminal cancer looking for sexual fulfillment. Sounds fun, right? It is. I have not enjoyed crying over fictional characters this much since Jane Eyre ran away from Rochester. The real love story is between Molly, played with consummate nuance by Michelle Williams, and her bestie Nikki, beautifully embodied by Jenny Slate. The dynamics of friendship during a wildly foreshortened search for authenticity is handled with such deft wit and humor, the finale feels triumphant. In her last hours, Molly indeed finds the missing piece of herself. The series is like listening to a sad song that expresses an ache you would not want to escape, because you understand how lucky you were to experience what created it.

• Wilderness vlogger Jessica Guo, or Stitches. Jess is a young woman from Washington State (trail name Stitches), who, to escape unshakeable depression, solo hiked the Continental Divide Trail and the Great Divide Trail combined last year, 37,000 miles in all. She brings the viewer along on her daily struggle to make her mileage before the seasonal change, walking through surrounded by breathtaking wilderness. Beginning in the desert of Chihuahua, Mexico and terminating in Alberta, Canada, not only the scenery and wildlife but her astute, lively commentary kept me emotionally invested, her observations about changes to glaciers, lakes and forests from what is printed on the maps and observed by previous hikers. A real Washingtonian, no frog or mountain goat misses her attentions. Her accomplishment filled me with joy, just as her misgivings about a vanishing world made me want to do more to save it.

• I Who Have Never Known Men, a 1995 Science Fiction novel by Belgian author Jaqueline Harpman. This stark post-apocalyptic fantasy set on a mysterious planet abandoned after a cataclysm left me with a pleasant ennui. The main character, Girl, travels through a muted world in which she is alternately captive, escapee, and finally, lone survivor. Translated recently, the novel was spurred to success via BookTok. As a parable of unfulfilled promise, there is something akin to our current inability to relate to one another in the core of this story. Fully alive, Girl knows she will never experience all of life’s potential. She is unforgettable, more human for the lack.

• GLP Meds. Maybe you are up on the new technology for fixing our collective broken metabolisms. If so, please forgive me for gushing. If not, suffice it to say that GLP meds are going to be as impactful on our society as cell phones. This is not my personal opinion. It is being stated by physicians, specifically endocrinologists, worldwide. The widespread, destructive and life-shortening disease of Obesity has traditionally been treated as a lifestyle/willpower issue. With the invention of peptide agonists (Ozempic/Wegovy, Terzepatide/Zepbound and soon, Retatrutide), the receptors in the body that have become inefficient due to modern forces (insulin resistance, chronic inflammation, toxins, other poorly explained mechanisms), become sensitive again. In other words, the peptides fix what is broken. The result is a normalized metabolism. If you have struggled with the impossibility of overcoming metabolic disorder using the now-debunked “calories in, calories out” method (5% success rate), you will know how important this new set of tools is. I am in my eighth week on Zepbound/Terzepitide. While doing all the behaviors required to lose twelve pounds in a muscle-preserving, sane manner, I have gained a huge perspective shift. As someone who has never, in my life, had a normal metabolism (I have had hypothyroidism since childhood, went on my first diet at eleven, etc.) I can tell you that to live in a normal relationship to eating is almost surreal. The relief of not being hungry every moment of every day or having steady blood sugar that no longer dips despite adequate, healthy fuel, is indescribable. In addition to helping people who are pre-diabetic/diabetic, the meds have many applications, with more being discovered all the time. A partial list: all forms of Arthritis, chronic inflammation, long Covid, POTS, several skin conditions, Dementia, Cancer, and cardiovascular disease. A recent study of Type-2 Diabetics found GLPs decreased cancer diagnoses by FIFTY PERCENT. These meds are a miracle.

• Knives Out 3, Wake Up Dead Man. I have never been a big Knives Out fan. Murder is not my favorite plot device, and while I love camp, a little Benoit Blanc goes a long way for me. But this film is the rare proper use of an old genre; turning tropes into timely social commentary. Not to speak of giving us Josh O’Connor in almost every frame. It kept my attention every moment. As always, the story is a complex, multi-character whodunit, this time set around a remote Catholic church, where bad-boy priest O’Connor has been exiled to the sphere of charismatic cult figure Monsignor Jefferson Wicks, played with consummate bravado by Josh Brolin. Struggling with questions of faith, obedience, and the slippery nature of Authority, it is a sequel for our times. The cast includes Kerry Washington and Glen Close, who steals every scene.

• The Harvard Longevity study, which found that the most important factor in living a long, healthy life was not success, diet, or exercise, but something more fundamental, the quality of relationships. Good social connectivity meant better health for decades. Support, friendship, family, the stuff that once came automatically before giving way to the hustle is back, baby. We need it. What this means to you and me is that we must attend open-ended social gatherings, where there is no goal other than being together. It’s for our health! Parties, potlucks, clubs and vacations in groups, they’re medicinal now. Movie night? Cheaper than vitamins. Lunch at the deli, followed by thrifting? An investment in our wellbeing, of course. Games in front of the fire? I can feel my telomeres getting longer. What a great time to be alive.

  

  Photo by Jon Tyson on Unsplash