Footnotes 2025 Gift Guide
My favorite tools, books, and gear from the year.
Yeah, yeah, I know … another gift guide. But I have fun putting this together every year.
So without further ado, let’s jump right into the 5th-Annual Footnotes Gift Guide. As always, this guide is 100% unsponsored—just objects, books, and ideas I use or discovered this year.
Inside gifts
Notebooks
STALOGY Editor’s Series 365Days. I use this for my day-to-day journaling, drafting, and note taking. The covers are durable; so I can toss it in a backpack, often rushing and in the pre-dawn dark, without damage. With featherlight paper that’s remarkably thin, it’s packed with 368 pages. Yet only the heaviest of inks bleed through.
Decomposition Notebook. I prefer these to log my runs and workouts. It’s a slight upgrade from a regular composition notebook with thicker pages of recycled material and covers that feature naturalistic art.
Pens
Pen Type-B. This exquisite mechanical pen from CW&T uses a Pilot Hi-Tec-C cartridge for an elegant writing experience. I have a version in brass. It’s my favorite pen and I get a small sparkle of joy every time I reach for it.
Pen Type-B in turquoise double dip bronze Karas Kustom Retrakt v2 (currently on sale). My train commute and workaday pen of choice. It’s a standard ballpoint that works with a Pilot G2 cartridge but can be adapted to fit a smooth-rolling Schmidt Easyflow 9000 refill. I have a two-tone version in black and love its grippy machined texture; it’s essentially my fidget spinner during lengthy work meetings.
Karas also makes a lovely metal pen stand called the CUBE. I have the 9-pen version of this lovely hunk of polished aluminum. Added bonus: it’s too heavy for our cats to knock it off my desk.
Odds & Ends
Glocusent LED Book Light. This versatile little clip-light has an adjustable head and multiple settings for brightness and color temperature. I’ve mentioned this gadget before and recommend it again for anyone who needs to read or work in a space with sleeping children or spouses. Added perk: it has a built-in USB charger—no extra cord.
Creativity
If you want to avoid more consumption and live in the San Francisco Bay Area, here are my recommendations for East Bay studios offering classes (and gift cards) for fitness, movement, and creativity:
Left-Margin Lit: creative writing workshops from published authors in a cheerful little space right in Berkeley’s Gourmet Ghetto. Many virtual workshops and Zoom writing groups also available.
Crucible: where else in the world can you walk off the street and take classes ranging from woodworking, to glassblowing, to bike repair, to neon-light design?
Town Athletics: nepotistic of me to spotlight my wife’s studio, but Caitlin and Tinu have built a great strength and Pilates practice on Grand Ave in Oakland. Classes run the fitness gamut with specialization in strength-training for runners, injury recovery, and returning to activity postpartum.
Outside gifts
UA Launch Elite: Injury forced me to exercise indoors for most of the year. So I’m grateful for this well-fitted UA singlet. It was my favorite thing to wear during many sweaty hours on the spin bike.
New Balance Fresh Foam 1080: Before I got hurt, I was digging the NB Fresh Foam 1080s as a recovery-run rotation shoe. I’m a Hoka Clifton stan, but appreciate these as a plush option for those sore runs after harder efforts. The v15 is coming out soon, so you might be able to nab a sale on this year’s v14 version.
Patagonia Terravia Tote Bag Backpack. A parenting recommendation. An older model of this Patagonia tote/backpack served as our diaper bag. Post-potty training, it remains our go-to parenting satchel. Multiple zippered pockets help containerize stuff for easy access (medicines in one pocket, wipes in another, etc). The 24L capacity doesn’t convey how much you can stuff into this thing—it’s like Mary Poppins’s carpet bag. And the tote-style straps are super handy if you’re trying to juggle ten other things in your hands including a wiggling infant or toddler.
Territory Run Co Long Haul Belt. With a two-year-old, I try to keep my phone with me for runs in case of emergencies. This year I switched to the Long Haul Belt to hold a phone, gels, and such. A sleeve-like band that sits just above your waist, it runs great without jostling even with heavy smartphones.
Footnotes Fractel Cap. Shameless plug. If you’d like to support the newsletter and get a great hat with funky style for running, hiking, and more, this official Footnotes hat is 25% off for the rest of the year, with free shipping in the US.
Non-fiction
The Pacific Circuit by Alexis Madrigal. I wrote a review on Madrigal’s global history of the Port of Oakland, which tells the story of how the modern system of global trade was built at the expense of environmental and social devastation across the Pacific. I think every consumer, which is to say essentially everyone, should read this book.
Abundance by Ezra Klein and Derek Thompson. I spend a lot of time thinking about how the design of systems shape the human experience of movement and motion. Klein and Thompson make a generally convincing thesis as to why those systems, as they relate to built environment and material technology, have been so stagnant in America over the last half century. This probably passed under your radar, but with the 2026 midterm elections in the U.S. next year, it’s worth a read.
Seeing Like a State by James C. Scott. This tome was on my PhD qualifying exam list but I only skimmed the introduction and then had my friend Jason Rozumalski explain the general thesis to me while we sat on the steps of Dwinelle Hall at UC Berkeley. I finally read it this year. The general gist is that in order to govern, modern central governments must first render their subjects as legible. But they often fail to see the complexity and nuance of local social forms and knowledge. It’s a classic work, brimming over with historical insights for anyone who designs policy, products, or processes for a living.
Fiction
The Monster at the End of this Book by Jon Stone and Michael Smollin. HOW DID I GO 40 YEARS WITHOUT READING THIS BOOK? This Sesame Street classic is my favorite kid book of 2025. I love the art; I love the clever interactions between the story and the physical pages; I love doing a “Grover voice” when I read it to my daughter. So much fun.
We Loved to Run by Stephanie Reents. A great addition to collegiate sports writing, this novel follows the story of a women’s cross-country team at a liberal arts college as past traumas threaten to derail the season.
Children of Time by Adrian Tchaikovsky. This was my favorite deep sci-fi book of the year. Set in the distant future when an attempt to terraform a world with a genetically designed nanovirus goes awry. The virus sets on other living creatures, namely a species of jumping spiders. Spanning millennia, the novel follows the evolution of the spider society as an interstellar ark ship of cryogenically preserved humans makes their way to the planet after environmental collapse on Earth. The story suggests how other species, of radically different understandings of mind and self, might develop complex societies and technology. A riveting, ultimately optimistic story about civilization.
Need more inspiration? Here are some great gift guides I’ve stumbled upon this year:
Robin Sloan: food, writing tools, and objects for creatives
Lee Glandorf: favorites from women-owned brands
Brad Stulberg: list of the best books on mastery and excellence
Haile Bateman: art supplies and graphic novels
Thanks for reading this year’s guide. Wishing you a wonderful holiday season!
The whole Children of Time series is so creative and good. Adrian Tchaikovsky is goated.