Escape Hatch • 71

Apple of My Eye

Let’s get business out of the way right up front. King Sorrow was named one of the best books of the year by Apple Books—how cool is that?—and to put it in the hands of more readers, they’ve temporarily lowered the price of the e-book to $4.99. And, of course, all the other e-book purveyors are likely to match Apple’s offer, so you oughta soon be able to get the Kindle/Nook/etc. version at the same heavily reduced price (But this is really Apple’s party and their idea, so maybe now is the time to fire up Apple Books and check out what they’re offering?).

If you enjoy e-reading and you haven’t checked King Sorrow out yet, here’s a great moment to poke the buy button.

The Wrap-Up

I polished off the 2025 King Sorrow tour with a few (delightful) events in Canada alongside my pal, thriller writer Linwood Barclay, and then fell straight into work as soon as I was home, running to meet a few deadlines. I got things done, turned things in, and just in the last couple days I’ve finally had a chance to ease off the throttle and take a breath. Read for pleasure. Fiddle with a crossword. Think a little about the year and what happened in it.

I’m more happy than I know how to say about the way King Sorrow landed with readers and critics. I haven’t done a tour like that since my first novel came out in 2007 and while it ran me off my feet, I couldn’t have had a better time. Almost every night someone in the signing line told me something that left me unexpectedly moved and made me feel like all this crap I’ve written isn’t crap after all… that it gave some people a few happy evenings of reading and now and then was just exactly what someone needed at that moment in their life. That’s a nice thought.

Over the course of 2025, I did—little known fact—all of the podcasts. I was actually a guest on every podcast ever recorded! Sometimes I’m just there breathing noisily in the background, but I’m in there, trust me. I particularly like the one I did with the BBC Radio 2 bookclub because my wife pays attention to everyone they have on. Then there was this one, with Last Podcast on the Left. I haven’t thrown it on yet myself because, yuck, then I’d have to listen to my own voice coming out of speakers. But who knows, you might enjoy it. You subscribe to this newsletter, so your tastes are already suspect.

I did a lot of press too. This was one cool little piece: the Wall Street Journal profiled me for their House Call feature with Marc Myers.

And the book continued to land some… pretty great reviews?… including this humdinger in The Guardian (which has been tough on me in the past—they lambasted NOS4A2, I seem to recall. Thems the breaks… you get paid to take it and grin).

We already talked about Apple books, but King Sorrow was also named a notable book of the year by The New York Times—man, I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d park a book on that list. And Barnes & Noble threw the King on their best horror of 2025 round-up, too, right next to my Dad’s Never Flinch.

It’s been fun. I can’t complain. And on to the next, right? I’m chipping away at the second draft of Hunger and hoping I don’t go splat on my face. I even saw a cover for the new one the other day and it was great—bleak and beautiful and jolting—but I can’t share yet. Soon I hope.

While We’re Talking About ‘Best of’ Lists…

There are always a lot of these things gushing out of every corner of the internet around this time of year: best books, best albums, best cheeses, best human organs (in 2024 it was, controversially, the transverse colon… can the big T.C. repeat in 2025? We can only hope!).

I’m not gonna bore your transverse colon off with a 3,000 word essay describing the sophisticated pleasures of my own favorite books, films, and shows. I’m just gonna slap em down, like money on the bar, and you can keep the change, pardner. Here they are, with the bare minimum of commentary:

Books

Here’s my frightful four in 2025 and this crowd might be especially satisfying for readers who dug King Sorrow. If you want a big multi-character epic fantasy full of bitter reversals and massive action set pieces, welp, there’s a reason James Cameron wants to make a franchise out of The Devils. Between Two Fires is cut from a similar ancient tapestry and I love the way the heroes would hack their way out of one desperate situation and straight into another. I’ve been high on Coffin Moon for months and I feel like it goes with King Sorrow like the shot and the chaser—this is the kind of high octane horror I live for. I probably haven’t said nearly enough about When the Wolf Comes Home which piles terror on top of terror; it begins like The Terminator, but with a werewolf in place of a robot, and then turns into something far weirder.

After mulling it over, I left one other book off the list, Nonesuch by Francis Spufford, even though it might well have been the best thing I read all year. But it isn’t out yet, so let’s set it aside for now. It’ll contend for a top spot in 2026.

Television

Andor: like if John Le Carré wrote a Star War series and filled it up with all his usual moral ambiguities and quotable dialogue.

The Pitt: ferociously compelling, and I say that as a guy who has never had much interest in medical shows.

Slow Horses: never misses.

The Penguin: I feel comfortable saying Colin Farrell’s performance as Oswald Cobb is one of the four or five greatest leads in the history of the idiot box.

Film

Okay, gotta say a little more here. I have a personal rule never to include books or films or shows on this list by people I’m related to; I just feel like I’m not a fair judge. But I can’t leave The Long Walk off my 2025 Best-Of, because it was my favorite film of the year by a long stretch. As far as I’m concerned it’s one of the five best Stephen King adaptations, can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with Stand By Me, It: Chapter One, The Dead Zone, The Green Mile, and Shawshank Redemption (this last is the film The Long Walk most resembles).

Sinners: Ryan Coogler always kills it and Michael B. Jordan appears as one of the most compelling onscreen pairs since Butch and Sundance, only he’s Redford and Newman, and if that isn’t Oscar-worthy I don’t know what is.

Dangerous Animals is the best shark movie since Jaws (and is in conversation with that picture in a really fascinating way—check out the moment with the great white near the ending).

28 Years Later, c’mon, what do I got to say? These movies are piss-your-pants scary.

And as far as music goes, I heard a lot of great stuff this year, but the album that ruled my world was Florence + The Machine’s Everybody Scream, which comes across as the ultimate folk horror movie, as jolting and bonkers as the original Wicker Man, only it’s an LP. Ferocity and witchcraft and rock and roll. I’m happy to do whatever I can to support this coven, even if it means I’m the next sacrifice.

But At Least There Was Pie

I know it ain’t great out there. I took my gloomsome mood to Threads earlier yesterday morning (writing this on December 11th):

But I’ve put some Voltaren on the shoulder and I’m listening to my brother’s best of the year playlist and feeling a tiny bit better and remembering how much I have to be grateful for. One of my three-year-olds said to me the other day, “I suppose we could watch Wonderpets” and his use of the word “suppose” just about melted me. Three. Years. Old. We’ve had a proper pre-Christmas snowfall and the streetlamps outside are wearing hats of white powder and it looks like if you follow them far enough you’ll arrive at a faun’s cottage. In the summer, my wife and I had not one, not two, but three date nights: we saw F1 and Fantastic Four and went to Gordon’s wine bar next to Charing Cross. Parents of littles will know how special a night out really is… how special and how crucial. I saw Oasis in New Jersey and the brothers Gallagher rang my heart like a bell. If those guys can love each other again who knows what is possible? Arsenal is looking like the second coming of the Invincibles. Gillian made a potato-and-bacon pie a couple days ago that was the Platonic ideal of a cozy family dinner on a winter night (We got the recipe from Rhubarb and Lavender, worth following if Hobbit food is your jam—Gillian says the hardest part of making Hobbit food is catching the Hobbits, which is true). And you guys know about all the great professional stuff that’s happened, you been following this newsletter. That’s one more thing I feel grateful for: you guys. Thanks for reading Escape Hatch and reading the books and all the rest of it. On occasion I snap awake to how lucky I’ve been and how great it is I get to do this. I wish you every happiness this holiday season and lots of great reading in the year ahead.

— Joe Hill, Exeter, NH, December 10, 2025