A mystery-adventure set in Renaissance Florence, an extremely cool Senegalese horror-action flick, and more

Roundup 05/11/2025

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 fun, smart, mystery-adventure set among artists and aristocrats in Renaissance Florence;

• articles and essays on Sarah Wynn-Williams, Nigel Farage, and the abundance agenda;

• a cool-as-hell John Carpenter-esque action-horror flick out of Senegal; and

• four songs I’ve been really enjoying.

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Now, the roundup: