Reading is my calendar and my map.
Another year. 2025’s embers are burning out. From the beginning to the end, this one was pretty awful. And yet, in the middle, I found things that I’m personally happy about. Small victories. Little moments that were special.
I lost weight. My blood pressure problems are over. (Thanks to surgery for a malfunctioning adrenal gland, and GLP-1s). I started a show at CNET (Tech Therapy, RIP, but it was good while it lasted). I started this newsletter. I wrote a play. I went to the opening of Epic Universe, and looked at some cool tech all year long.
Also, I read some books.
I make sure to tackle a bunch of books every year, and I’m pretty proud and curated about my picks. I’m not a fast reader anymore, but I can get through about 20 a year. The books I pick, like tarot cards, usually tell a story about my mindset, my obsessions, the shape of my subconscious and my dreams. Interconnected threads emerge. Intertwixt the reading, the year happens.
So here’s what I read in 2025, with little blurbs I wrote and posted online as I read them, expanded a bit here. I prefer they feel enigmatic, and possibly make you curious enough to discover one or two of them, too.
Frankenstein by Junji Ito
One part is an adaptation of the Shelley book, which I never read. Dreams of resurrection bring nothing but death. Then the second part is tales of Oshikiri, a boy who lives in an empty house where other dimensions lurk. Horror on day one of the year. You can understand why. But Ito has his beauty, too. And Frankenstein ended up being a theme frequently revisited.
The Imagineering Story, by Leslie Iwerks
An exhaustive, nearly comprehensive history of Disney’s parks - basically a parallel to the Disney+ series. Where’s Lanny Smoot? Also, while sometimes inspiring, also reminds me of corporate processes of contraction and compromise. Full of details, though. After a year full of Disney in 2024, and a 2025 where I visited Universal’s parks extensively, theme park design has been in my brain a lot.
Catching the Big Fish by David Lynch
This was my second time reading it…part of my year of Lynch revisits. After Lynch passed away in January, I was in a fugue state revisiting his art. I’ve heard some of these stories before. This time I took in the meditation thoughts. Relaxing the mind. Opening up to find ideas. Not judging the process. I admire all of this. Lynch is my treasured filmic joy, and I’m still not over him being gone.
Unbalancing Acts, by Richard Foreman
When Foreman also passed away in the winter, I remembered the shows I’d seen of his. Particularly Symphony of Rats. His work made me dream of a truly rebellious otherworldly approach to theater. Theater as a dimensional vortex. Reading scripts meant to be performed, it feels like nonsense washing over my brain. But his thoughts on disrupting our associations to mental models…exploring the chaos of impulses…it feels like cultural counterwarfare and meditation at once. Art is a path.
The Phantom Tollbooth, by Norton Juster
I somehow never read this in my whole life till now. It’s odd, because I love books like Alice in Wonderland and The Neverending Story. A friend reminded me to read it. So much absurdity, so much bureaucracy (like Alice in Wonderland). But the end got me. The journey opens doors. I was a little kid for a while and that’s a pretty fun thing to do. Rediscover.
Exploits & Opinions of Dr. Faustroll, Pataphysician, by Alfred Jarry
A book that’s been traveling with me since I bought it at the Museum of Jurassic Technology gift shop years and years ago. Jarry has always fascinated me since my MFA in theater. I’m not exactly sure what I just read, but it seems to have involved a sieve-boat, many imaginary locations in Paris, and an unbelievable number of words I didn’t know. Pre-Dada, pre-surrealism. Origin point for a shattered world. And, impossible text.
Blood in the Machine, by Brian Merchant
Subtitled “The Origins of the Rebellion Against Big Tech.” History lesson about the Luddites, and incredibly apt analysis of our current moment. The struggle continues. A reminder that power gets taken by people, not machines. This book was sent to me by Brian years ago and I only got to reading it now…but the parallels to our AI bubble age, and the way the history literally intertwines with Frankenstein, echoed with me.
The Lost Cause, by Cory Doctorow
There are worse things coming than just political horrors. A good book to read about the catastrophes everyone will need to work together to solve. Published in 2023, set in the mid-2030s, and it’s never felt more of the current moment. I’ve loved Doctorow’s work for years, but The Lost Cause read as even more of a struggle with our dumb current world than I ever expected.
The Infinite Playground, by Bernard de Koven (and others)
So glad I found and absorbed this book on shared play, coliberation, the sprit of collective imagination. A research book for me on where the “me” and “we” begin and end. Stuff I folded into a recent play project I wrote over the winter, called Endemica, that’s about similar themes of play (and also questions of agency).
Theatre of the Oppressed, by Augusto Boal
I’ve been thinking about theater as a tool, not just politically, but socially. Can a new theater be part of a glue to build a new world? Boal’s book bubbled up in my subconscious when I was thinking of something to read in the spring. I’d never read it before, I don’t think. I can’t say I have the memory to recall every theater reference in this, but Boal’s concept of the “joker” is fascinating. Also, that revolutionary times call for new theatrical poetics, something that’s not resolved, doesn’t give us closure.
Death of the Author, Nnedi Okorafor
A painful and liberating story…a mirror or a loop. I’m left thinking about the journey and transformation of the self, and the stories that set us free. I learned a lot and also felt emotional resonances, and…I had no idea where it was going. And the reflections on AI and self feel good for this moment. I was reminded of Richard Powers’ book Playground, which parallels this in some ways.
The Battle for your Brain, by Nita Farahany
I’m aiming to learn more about neurotech. This was recommended to me after visiting OpenBCI in 2023 to look at their sensor-studded VR headset platform Galea. After sitting in my Kindle for years, now I read it. I can’t say it went as far as I wanted into the possibilities of the future I’m dreaming of, but it’s a foundation for ideas and concerns. My favorite parts are right at the end. I wish it went further. Its cautions on regulation feel more relevant and more impossible to attain than ever.
The Art of Immersive Storytelling: Strategies from the Gaming World, by Margaret Kerrison
I’ve thought about making my own immersive experiences. Reading this and overlaying thoughts of games and tech- it crosses into lots of my zones. I think I’ll be thumbing through this again. Kerrison has worked on Disney’s Imagineering projects, and helped create Star Wars: Galaxy’s Edge. I’ve read her other books, too, and this one might be my favorite.
Interactive Performance 101, by Jeff Wirth
Jeff has been generous enough to speak with me off and on for many years. I love the work he represents. As I explore more, his guidance in written form helps. Also: improvisation and interactivity are kind of the key to everything coming next. And his ideas of “interactors” dovetail with Boal’s concepts. How do we invite others to join us in new experiences, and how do we create experiences that welcome them and provide structure and agency?
Orbital, by Samantha Harvey
I’m part of a book club with old college friends, and we pick good books to struggle over. This was one of them. Six astronauts on an orbiting space station. One day. Time and distance and orbital meditations and an escape from a planet you can’t really escape from. Humanity’s blip. How much are we part of our breathing environment, and when it changes how much do we change? I read this while on vacation in the UK, pulling back and thinking of the world from a distance.
The Spell of the Sensuous, by David Abram
Thank you to Keiichi Matsuda for telling me to read this when we connected at the AWE conference back in June. Reading after Orbital felt like destiny. A book about being local and sensual with our world. A challenge to my mind. So close to what I want to create next, and also a call to action. I’ve been obsessed about ideas of how augmented reality should feel like an extension to our living world, and how challenging that actually is to do. Are we better off not augmenting?
If on a winter’s night a traveler, by Italo Calvino
Another book club pick with my friends. And, a book I read once, a while ago, and forgot the details of. …in a network of lines that enlace, in a network of lines that intersect…I’ve been interested in the Intertwixt between thoughts and worlds. This book is all of that. Also, in our age of AI fragmentation, here’s the work dreaming beyond it.
The Spellshop, by Sarah Beth Durst
I try to read a book by a friend at least once a year. I don’t read the books of friends nearly enough. And this one, this magic, warm and cozy book, is so far from my own aesthetic. But it makes me love Sarah’s work even more. Choosing kindness is always an option. It turns out I needed the hug. Sarah was a college classmate and someone I took playwriting and creative writing classes with. My wife told me I should read her book, and I did, and Sarah, I’m really impressed.
Frankenstein, by Mary Shelley (1818)
I’d never read it before. But after all these echoes of Frankenstein, why not go to the source? I never felt compelled to read Frankenstein because I thought I already knew what it was about. I was wrong. I’m glad I got the right version, something I didn’t know would be an issue at the outset (apparently the 1818 original is considered better). This is a book of hope and despair. Ouroboros. Goodness in the world, or ruin? One to feed the other? Also a marker on a road: do not proceed further, turn back. Haunted and full of dread in the end, yet so bright. A riddle. A koan.
Black Hole, by Charles Burns
Another book that’s been on my shelf for about, well, 20 years. So, finally, why not read it? The characters blended together for me. The art drifted. Unread, on my shelf, it was full of mystery. Now defined, I wonder if I’d prefer if I hadn’t defined it. Adolescence and alienation and a sense of self as monster. Judgement. Ito-like. I didn’t know it’s going to be a TV series next year, I think.
The Design of Everyday Things, by Don Norman
I’m finishing this book on design right now. I bought it last year. Norman’s work is about the psychology of how we interface with products and systems, and my undergrad psych major self started to awaken here. Also, it’s interconnected with how I think about reviewing new products, experiencing new technology that’s trying to birth itself into systems we haven’t etched into our everyday lives yet. In this book is part of the puzzle for how AR and AI will need to unfold. I stay obsessed with tech because of these questions of interfacing, interacting.
The Antidote, by Karen Russell
I’m only reading this now, I’ve barely begun. Russell’s work is stuff I come back to over and over, part of a little magic group of writers including Kelly Link and George Saunders and Jeff VanderMeer that I drop everything and rush to when they have something new. This is set in the Depression, a magic haunted world with a memory witch and echoes of The Wizard of Oz.
The Future of Storytelling: How Immersive Experiences Are Transforming Our World, by Charles Melcher
A whole beautiful book on immersive and interactive art and storytelling, a book to browse through and learn about different places, and let the magic possibilities seep into the mind. Charles Melcher runs The Future of Storytelling, an organization which used to have an in-person conference in New York each year. I missed my chances to attend, though I met Charles in person years ago when visiting a gallery of immersive experiences he curated. I spoke with him recently over video chat, and his perspective on how these new forms of art — immersive theater, VR, games, theme parks — are parts of ancient storytelling forms that are likely even more eternal than the printed word fills me with a sense of cyclic closure. A door forward, a door back. I’ve been slow to read this book because it’s so close to what I love the most, but it’ll be something I finish after CES in Vegas in early 2026.
That’s it for now. Thanks for reading me during my first year of The Intertwixt. I won’t be back until after my upcoming trip to CES in Vegas in a week, which should be a whirlwind of oddities and echoes. Follow me on CNET, and I’ll be Intertwixting again soon enough. And hang in there. A long year is over, and a new one is waiting to be born. We all need to be strong enough to dream.