If you're an Ann Arbor District Library cardholder, you receive a weekly email newsletter listing news, upcoming events, and a slew of recommendations from the catalog. Those recs are also available at aadl.org/reviews, and we're always happy to make suggestions for books, audiobooks, streamable content in the catalog, DVDs, board games, tools, etc., if you visit us at the branches.

But our 2025 Staff Picks allow the AADL crew to go beyond the library catalog—and the calendar year.

We don't limit our year in review to things that came out in 2025 or items that can be checked out from AADL; the staff comments on whatever favorite media and events they experienced this year, no matter when or where they originated. Maybe a favorite album of 2025 came out in 1973, or the best book someone read this year is so old that it's out of copyright. It's all good, and it all counts.

Here are the categories of AADL's 2025 Staff Picks:

➥ AADL 2025 Staff Picks: Words
Books, audiobooks, graphic novels, comics, websites, and more

➥ AADL 2025 Staff Picks: Screens
TV, movies, DVDs, video games, YouTube, streaming, etc.

➥ AADL 2025 Staff Picks: Audio
Music, podcasts, CDs, records, and more

➥ AADL 2025 Staff Picks: Pulp Life
Games, apps, sports, outdoors, and any other kind of hard-to-categorize cultural and life activities

More AADL Staff Picks:
➥ 2024
➥ 2023
➥ 2022
➥ 2021
➥ 2020
➥ 2019
➥ 2018
➥ 2017
➥ 2016