Top 5 of '25
Videos, Books, 'Sletters and more
Ah, another year-end recap. You couldn’t possibly be sick of them, are you? Well, I have one more, but I’m keeping it relatively simple. In the spirit of High Fidelity, I’m offering a top five in a few of my favorite categories of media consumption. I’m excluding music because even though it is probably my most consistently consumed medium, it’s the only one I have absolutely no interest in ever making. And despite paying an obscene amount of money for nearly every streaming service, this year I didn’t watch enough movies or TV series to feel like a top five list would mean much. I’ll just say that Sinners was incredible, far exceeding my expectations, and everyone should watch Bing Liu’s new movie Preparation for the Next Life because it’s beautiful. The Studio (Apple TV) is the best television series I’ve seen in a long time and The Diplomat (Netflix) continues to be terrific.
Top Five Tricks
Bob Burnquist : Switch Front Foot Impossible to Lipslide
On paper, there is nothing appealing about this trick. But when you see it, and think about the lifetime of groundbreaking tricks this forty-nine-year-old man has already accomplished, it’s just so fucking cool. The scale, the wild style, the switch ride out. Tom Schaar is an amazing vert and mega ramp skater, but it is unlikely that there will ever be anyone as great as Bob.
Yuri Facchini : Hardflip to Frontside Nosegrind
Over the last fourteen years, as I became a peer and sometimes real friend to some of the world’s best skateboarders, there are two tricks I’ve requested from certain skaters with a particular set of talents. Both of those tricks went down in 2025. One is a backside noseblunt at three-up-three-down in SF. We have yet to see the footy, but it will certainly be a contender for 2026 TOTY.
I started asking for the second trick in 2012 after figuring out the front shove to frontside nosegrind. I thought the same subtle movement shift could easily happen with the hardflip. I can’t do hardflips, especially not with the power and precision needed to land in a frontside nosegrind. But I’ve lived with hardflippers (Kelly Hart), I’ve had hardflippers crash on my couch (Wade Desarmo), I’ve traveled with hardflippers (Boo Johnson, Ryan Gallant), I’ve remained close friends with ledge savants who became SOTYs who can hardflip (Mark Suciu, Miles Silvas), and I’ve even DM requested the move from hardflipping acquaintances (Sewa Kroetkrov). Hell, I was even once a groomsmen for a hardflipper (Sebo Walker) who has done many hardflip backside nosegrind and frontside noseslide variations. No one accepted my challenge.
And then, Yuri did one. Someone I once gave an Old Friends PT Pack to and didn’t even think to ask. And he did it on a fucking picnic table! It blew my mind. I would say it’s the first, but a homie in Boston told me that Will Mazzari did one too. I haven’t seen the clip, but I believe him.
Antonio Durao : Switch Tre over the Brooklyn Banks 10 Rail
We all knew Antonio would hit us with a bangin switch tre in 2025, but most of us expected it to be on the ‘berg. He was the man I wanted to see win SOTY, and there was a moment there at the end of November when I thought, man, if Antonio would just go do that shit for Instagram or something, he could win! But alas, he did not switch 360 flip Wallenberg. Instead, he did it on a much cooler spot, though perhaps not as gnar. It’s a popped switch tre, the most elusive sort. A dope one, but not a groundbreaking one. While I was rooting for him ‘til the bitter end, his parts just didn’t really do it for me this year. None of them felt complete and they were littered with too many one-foots, half-flips, and other tom-foolery. A wise man once said, “Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should.” For the editors of Antonio’s footage next run; please, just leave out the silliness.
Chris Joslin : Tre Flip El Toro
Objectively speaking, this is the best trick of the year. Unbelievable perfection and the only skate trick from the last few years with a celebration hug that brought actual tears to my eyes.
But the problem is, I’ve already sort of seen it. There’s a lying version and an almost version. After so many rewatches in wonder, when the real thing arrived it no longer hit with the proper impact. Eight years ago, it almost happened. Three years ago, I watched a spliced (pre AI) cut and it was almost completely convincing. Then later, Instagram fed me the near-perfect ride away so many times, by the time I watched the real one, I’m not sure that I cared anymore. I don’t want to take anything away from Chris Joslin’s well-deserved SOTY trophy and his trick of the year. Both should be his. But I don’t know. The internet ruined the magic for me.
Eetu Toropainen : Backside Bigspin
I love when a trick shocks me and leaves me thinking, HOW!!??
This one really blew my mind. And I still don’t quite believe it happened. Actually . . . how?
Video Parts:
Ryan Lay - Endless Beauty
There have been a few moments in skateboarding when a skater is presented to hip-hop, creating pure magic. These moments either create a new impression or alter a preexisting one. Antwuan as an arrival. Chris Cole as a rebrand alongside an introduction of Tom Asta. Jamie Thomas in Chomp on This. Maybe even Mark Suciu in Sabotage 3.
Now I won’t say that I have necessarily disliked the music Ryan Lay has skated to in the past, but it’s not for me. So when the sultry sounds of Young Thug arrived, stomping new excitement into the nollie-noseblunting career twilight of a skater I greatly admire, I was hyped. And the hype kept building!
This is easily the part I watched most this year to get hyped to skate, which is hopefully what we’re all here for. It’s fun when skating looks fun, even when we know it probably wasn’t. This is Ryan’s best part to date, and as a stand-alone piece, one of the great parts of the century. Yeah, you read that right. The century.
Bobby Dekeyzer - BOBCBC
I already wrote about it for my mid-year recap. As incredible as this piece is, I still would love to see all the makes as one part. The easy rewatch factor just isn’t there.
Daniel Lutheran - A Pound of Flesh
I love to see a homie come out of the woodwork and bang us over the head with some powerful skating. Bravo Daniel!
Lil Dre - Girl
Dre is already someone I wrote about in my mid-year recap, so I don’t want to be redundant. But aside from the intro, which felt just a tad long and somewhat off, the skateboarding in this video part is his best yet. I also like that it makes me enjoy a song I would otherwise never listen to.
Griffin Gas - Pearl
My new favorite BALS (Best American Ledge Skater). Long been a fan, his parts are always a treat. But there’s something special about this one. Just when I thought I was sick of the VX, a part like this comes out to totally bring out the magic.
Full length Videos:
Melodi - Wasting Time
In a few years, I’m probably going to look at this and wonder what the hell I was thinking. But when I think about 2025’s full length videos, nothing moved me as much as this one. I can barely name a skater in it, or the guy who made it. I don’t even really remember the tricks! But I remember the feeling. A rare essence, both scary, exciting, and inspiring.
Real : Oval
Zion peaking, Mason ripping, Toby Ryan being the absolute gnarliest, and Kyle Walker proving he’s still goes huge. Oh yeah, and Ishod! A great skate video from start to finish.
Tim Savage: Free Game
When putting out a skate video, the best thing you can hope for is that it’s a quiet week on the interweb. Well, I was not so lucky this year. I’d been sitting on Siesta for almost a year, and the week it hit the internet, Free Game came out the next day. And then a day later, the Hockey video arrived. Both videos are amazing, but I like this one more. Underground ledge gods and some of New England’s finest. Nothing like a good homie video made by a homie.
Sci-Fi Fantasy : Endless Beauty
Some of the music hit, some of it didn’t. But this is a great skate video. I’m forever a Corey Glick fan, but a point deducted from its potential ranking due to Ryan not getting the closer. Also, would have loved to see Jerry with his own part.
Chris Mulhern: Untitled 007
A surprise Bobby Worrest part and mind-blowing pop madness from Quel? Not much more you can ask for.
BOOKS
I finish every year wishing I read more. But how does anyone find the time? For the last two years, I’ve been the primary caregiver for our son while my wife works nine to five. If anyone out there has raised a toddler, you’ll agree that there’s not much time for leisurely reading. And when there is free time, there are house projects, the phone, my own writing, the reading of my own writing, dozens of other miscellaneous computer projects. Bills and emails. Going skateboarding, editing said skateboarding. But somehow I was still able to squeak out thirty-eight books in 2025. Nineteen novels, ten short story collections, and nine nonfiction books. Nonfiction audiobooks, I will admit, which I use to ease away from long-form podcast consumption.
My novel selection comes from a mix of recommendations (Train Dreams, North Woods, American Pastoral), gifts from my mom (Kindred), Kindle copies my wife purchased (Carrie Soto is Back), trailers of new movie/tv adaptations (Project Hail Mary, Department Q : Keeper of Lost Causes), classics I feel obligated to read (The Talented Mr. Ripley), and sometimes spontaneous purchases based on a book’s physical size (The Little Liar, Everything I Never Told You). This year I finally completed Tom Perrotta’s oeuvre (I’d somehow missed his first, The Wishbones). I’ve also decided to read all of the Pulitzer Prize Winning novels awarded in my lifetime. I’m aiming for two a year.
Since I’m new to enjoying short story collections, I’m starting with the novelists I like who’ve published collections (In Our Time), collections I’ve already read (Nine Stories, Do The Windows Open?) and others I find lying around (Best of 2012). Nonfiction selections are totally random. Charlie Wilson’s War, for example, struck my eye at the dump and my favorite of the year came from a Ta-Nehisi Coates interview (yes, I do still listen to podcasts).
Novels:
So Far Gone by Jess Walter
Jess Walter brought me out of a serious reading slump. The last few months of the year, I’d been picking up and putting down a handful of books. I rarely give up on novels, but I was stuck with a handful that I just wasn’t that into. And then I read the first two pages of So Far Gone, which happened to be sitting on a my Aunt Tracey’s coffee table, and I was hooked. I finished it in two days, a reading experience I haven’t had in years. The characters jump off the page and the story is that perfect blend of comedy, tragic stupidity and beautiful humanity. A book for our time, but one I’ll be recommending for years to come.
Citizen Vince by Jess Walter
Visit From The Goon Squad by Jennifer Egan
Where the Axe is Buried by Ray Nayler
Beautiful Ruins by Jess Walter
Nonfiction:
The Brothers by Stephen Kinzer
This couldn’t be a more relevant book to dive into in January 2026. The Brothers covers the insane reign of the Dulles Brothers over the CIA and the State Department when the USA began testing its regime change muscles. Guatemala, Iran, Vietnam, Congo, Indonesia, Cuba. Kinzer details how the CIA waged complicated propaganda campaigns and orchestrated violent overthrows aimed to satisfy US corporate interests and to “combat” any potentially communist or anti-US developing nation state. Most of the time, these countries weren’t even communist or anti-USA, but we just didn’t want them getting close to the Soviet Union. It’s tragic how many countries are still affected to this day by actions taken sixty or seventy years ago by these two men. Shockingly, those regime change efforts pale in comparison to the brazen kidnapping of the Venezuelan president last week. And while it may not be a “regime” change, it has all the workings of a plan the Dulles brothers would only have dreamed of executing.
Tomorrow is Yesterday by Hussein Agha, Robert Malley
Charlie Wilson’s War by George Crile
Abundance by Ezra Klein, Derek Thompson
Debt: The First 5000 Years by David Graeber
Short Story Collections:
1. We Live in Water by Jess Walter
2. Nine Inches by Tom Perrotta
3. Haunting of Hajji Hotak by Jamil Jan Kochai
4. Diamond As Big as the Ritz by F. Scott Fitzgerald
5. When the Nines Roll Over in by David Benioff
Newsletters
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As a new father and nightly reader of picture books, sometimes you wonder . . . what exactly the hell is going on here? This newsletter asks similar questions, but through the lens of two seasoned picture book authors, and they’re hilarious. If you grew up reading Goodnight Moon or Go Dog Go, please read their deep dives. So funny.
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