With the new year upon us, it’s time to look back at 2017, a year that was frequently strange and only occasionally epic. (I feel like every year in America is like this nowadays, but that’s a topic for another post.)

Below is a list of my favorite stuff from the past year, organized in various categories.

Note: this list doesn’t exclusively feature things released in 2017, like many lists. Most of it’s a hodgepodge of stuff I watched/read/experienced for the first time and loved. There are a...