"It looks like the fork has pierced the sky"

Three picture books my son loves, an underseen Le Carré adaptation, and four tracks I love

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:

• Three beautiful and charming picture books my 4-year-old loves;

• some great essays and columns on DOGE, Elon Musk’s relationship to South African politics, bad Instagram poetry, and the money behind cooking YouTube channels;

• a great, perfectly drab John Le Carré adaptation I’d never seen;

• four new tracks I’ve been listening to on repeat.

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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: