A unique gothic horror novel, a great recent samurai flick, and a perfect Spotify playlist

Roundup 04/21/2024

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 horror-fantasy in the tradition of Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell that’s almost like Jane Eyre set in the faelands;

• an extremely awesome samurai movie to scratch your post-Shogun itch; and

• a great new Spotify playlist with vibes described as “Balearic Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.”

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Now, the roundup. First, as always, a dispatch from the future: