A creepy sci-fi horror series with a great conceptual hook, a strangely gripping movie about Nazi bureaucracy, and more

Roundup 06/16/2025

Greetings from Read Max HQ, and welcome to our weekly roundup column, in which I pick out some worthwhile and often overlooked books, articles, movies, and music to recommend to paying subscribers. For this week’s round-up, I’ve got:

• A very creepy sci-fi horror series with a great conceptual hook;

• essays and columns about the abundance theory of power, A.I.’s effect on the labor market, and Sam Altman’s “gentle singularity”;

• a chilling, strangely gripping movie about Nazi bureaucracy that might be especially interesting for Andor watchers; and

• two terrific new albums.

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Now, the roundup. :