Welcome to our year-end list, fueled by whimsy and idiosyncratic connection, ungoverned by year of publication or form of media. The below is a sampling of what has delighted staff at the Network in 2025. We would be further delighted to know what delighted you this year. Send any appreciations—books, games, music, movies, animals, more—to amy@nnyln.org, and we’ll add your delights to the list.
Brenna
Rewatching old TV shows and movies years later is like catching up with an old friend. You get to see them differently but the connection is still there. I just revisited Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and it hit in an entirely different way than it had in my teenage years (who knew I’d ever relate to Giles), so now I’m diving into The X-Files. Nostalgia is even better on a rewatch.
Chuck
In an era of very popular ‘thinky’ resource-optimization games, I recommend the absolute opposite: Magical Athlete, a roll-and-move game! This wacky racing game from publisher CMYK, sees each player choose four characters, with game-breaking powers, and race for victory points. Every race is different with each character’s power interacting in weird and wonderful ways. This game is great with kids and adults because, if the race isn’t going your way, it’s over quickly and the next race will be different! It was an unexpected favorite from this year.
Pluribus, an AppleTV show set in Albuquerque, follows Carol Sturka, a romance novelist, who faces an alien invasion. Instead of flying saucers and ray-guns, an alien virus converts almost every human into a single hive-mind. This would normally be terrible except the hive-mind ends poverty, war, and violence worldwide and claims to want to make Carol happy. Carol, of course, hates that! The show explores loneliness, individuality, and independence. It speaks to our current social media landscape and, as a social media abstainer, I can relate to Carol’s plight.
Meg
A book I liked this year was Heartwood by Amity Gaige. I harbor an unrealistic fantasy of volunteering with an Adirondack Search and Rescue organization, so I’m a sucker for these lost-in-the-woods stories. In addition to the missing hiker saga (Appalachian Trail), this book offers interior reflections on maternal bonds, which I’m also totally into.
Katelyn
For anyone who loves games involving strategy and resource management, Coffee Rush may be for you. Your goal: to become the best barista by quickly (and accurately) fulfilling drink orders. Get too many bad reviews, and the game will be over. Reminiscent of computer/online games such as Diner Dash and Overcooked!, this board game proved to be a lot of fun with family, friends, and co-workers!
Amy
Poetry proved just what I needed this year. Sayumi Kamakura’s Applause for a Cloud, translated by James Shea, uses haiku to explore world travels, pandemic, a loved one’s illness, and, well, life. It reminded me to look for tiny extraordinariness, not as a means of looking away from larger issues but as a form of sustenance. Likewise, Luke Allan’s chapbook, Sweet Dreams, the Sea, intersperses humor and wonder with the navigation of grief and loss. At the risk of cheapening these 20 pages of magic, I have to shout out the poet’s series on living through the dark snowy winter of Iceland. As someone experiencing her first North Country winter, it spoke to my soul.