Books, Movies, and Music of the year

Roundup 12/29/24

Greetings from Read Max HQ, and welcome to our weekly roundup column. This week’s is the year-end READ MAX AWARDS EDITION, featuring previous selections from the Read Max Roundups given important year-end awards like:

• Best book I read all year

• Best alternate histories I read this year whose counterfactuals turn on the Columbian Exchange

• Best looming tower in a movie

• Most (and best) web pop-ups in a movie

• Best song my son inexplicably loved and demanded to hear any time we were in the car

It’s been quite a year! If you’d like to read more--and if you want to support Read Max in its continuing mission of explaining the future to relatively normal people--please subscribe below. Subscribers get access to these weekly emails and to the comprehensive Read Max Master Lists of Good Movies to Watch and Good Books to Read--as well as preferred pricing on merchandise like the Read Max “EMAIL SUPPLY” caps. If you’re already a subscriber, thank you.

I love to hear from readers who want to recommend a cool book or movie (or whatever!) to me, or from readers who are looking for specific kinds of recommendations. Just leave a comment or drop me a line at maxread@gmail.com.

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Now, the roundup.