Jason Kottke posts a semi-regular recap of his “media diet,” which I always find interesting. He only writes one or two sentences about each item, and gives them a letter grade, which I think is a great length: I don’t tweet that much, and Twitter doesn’t need my hot takes in real-time anyway, but I do think it’s fun to write this stuff down to revisit later.

Here’s what I’ve been reading and watching this January.

His Dark Materials on HBO. I’d been curious about this story since the 2007 movie, but never took the time to read the books. This really well-done and inspred me to finally read the series.

Watchmen on HBO. This was so, so good. Every episode made me say two things: “WTF did I just watch?” and “I cannot wait until the next episode.” We truly live in the golden age of TV.

The Golden Compass, The Subtle Knife, and The Amber Spyglass by Philip Pullman. After watching the HBO show, I couldn’t wait for the next season so I went ahead and read all three books. These were a great read, but now I have no idea how they’re going to film these next two books without spending hundreds of millions of dollars.

For All Mankind. I’m a sucker for both space exploration and alternate histories, so this was a no-brainer for me. Fun, although it gets slow in a few places. Looking forward to season 2.

The Witcher on Netflix. I never played the games—and didn’t realize the games were based on books—but enjoyed this more than I expected. The “Toss A Coin To Your Witcher” song is just as catchy as everyone says.

Ra by Sam Hughes. The premise is fascinating (“What if magic was discovered in the 1970s and was treated as a rigorous science?”) but gets into “hard” sci-fi territory, which I find kind of tedious. I finished it but would find it hard to recommend unless you like that particluar style.

The Last Wish: Introducing the Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski. Again, watched the show, didn’t want to wait for a new season, so now I’m working through the books. I haven’t finished this yet (only about halfway through) but it’s been just as enjoyable as the show and I’ll probably keep reading in the series.