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2023: The year in weird and stupid futures

Why the internet isn't fun anymore + A.I. and magic

An excellent, funny sci-fi series; a forgotten real-time '90s heist flick; and more

My statement on the situation at Harvard: I simply do not care very much about Harvard

The best ghost stories for December, a great new monster movie, and YouTube nightbus pop

Why I cover A.I. the way I do, good obscure action movies, and other questions from readers

Seeking your questions and your favorite "weird future" stories

A sci-fi novel about a future political operative, a bizarre lost 2000s action movie, and a great album of Kraut-y Irish folk music

The end of business-class A.I. doomerism

The Read Max Holiday Gift Guide

The interested normie's guide to OpenAI drama

A strange, hilarious cyberpunk docu-fiction masterpiece; a novel about art, finance, and a gnome; and a holiday-music request to Read Max readers

Context collapse collapse

A spy novel for fans of 'The Americans,' a good Pennsylvania neo-noir, and a great new contemplative rock album

David Fincher's new movie 'The Killer' is sigma cinema

The best sci-fi TV show I've seen all year; a fascinating nonfiction book about global crime syndicates; and a great collection of folk and world music mixes

Let's clear up a few things about 'Blade Runner' and the cyber truck

A forgotten and cursed English folk-horror flick, some good internet and tech-industry reads, and a great sophisticated pop album

What A.I. art spiral images tell us about A.I. (and art)

More reading about Gaza and Israel, an insanely creepy movie for Halloween, and autumnal mixes

"Techno-optimism" is a sign of V.C. crisis

What I'm reading about Gaza

Two years of Read Max

The American "Wicker Man," some great "technothrillers," and a dubstep-jazz-Indian classical LP

Overthinking Elon Musk

An amazing English time-travel fantasy, a great BBC fantasy-mystery, and eerie Irish folk

A.I. and writing: What we won in the strike

A fever-dream fantasy about a nonexistent Mediterranean country; a good Brooklyn serial-killer neo-noir; and a spectral dub ambient record

What is it with David Brooks and restaurants?

A funny, sharp exercise in meta satire; a strange and unforgettable English crime flick; and reimagined beatless trance-pop

A literary history of fake texts in Apple's marketing materials

A beautiful goth fairy tale my kid is obsessed with, a maligned action sequel it's time to revisit, and more

'Brotherhood of the Wolf,' revisited with Indignity's Tom Scocca

Read Max Labor Day sale: 20% off, this week only!

Notes toward a theory of the millennial ambition psycho

A deep-sea domestic horror, a cool noir TV show, and a great debut orchestral pop album

Anxieties about kids and screen time, train vs. submarine movies, crime-novel recommendations, and other questions

Seeking your questions for a Read Max mailbag

A cult occult fantasy novel, a great drug-war neo-noir, and non-algorithmic algorithm jaxx

Checking in on Twitter

More reading about A.I., a Friedkin masterpiece secretly available on streaming, and a late-summer soundtrack

The William Friedkin Paranoid-Thriller Double Bill

Smart LeGuin-like sci-fi, a great political kidnapping thriller, and "cyberfunk"

Notes on it's so over/we're so back

True Life: For reasons I don't fully understand I bought hundreds of Cold War-era military slides on eBay

The Shitposting Zone

Talking with former Threads editor-in-chief Katie Notopoulos

The internet is for 12-year-olds

Cool sci-fi about artificial (and alien) intelligence, an actually pretty good Netflix action movie, and

July: a programming note

What to buy in the NYRB summer book sale, a tropical paranoid thriller, and a terrific new RnB album

Why do entertainment executives hate entertainment?

The French 'Heat,' a beautiful book of new folktales, and Malian praise songs

Why millennials hate MrBeast

Welcome to Read Max

Orange-sky apocalypse horror fiction, a cool corporate conspiracy thriller about a plane crash, and a mellow record-collector compilation

Who is the new Drip King? A conversation with Henry De Tolla, a.k.a. H00pify

The coming pro-smoking discourse

What I'm reading about A.I., the 'Wet Hot American Summer' of 'Columbo,' and a new album from a folk-rock legend

I cannot believe the shit that morons are getting up to with ChatGPT

A 'halogencore'-ish non-fiction thriller, two worthwhile new action movies, and a sick summer soundtrack album

Share a Coke with Hitler

A great fake travel book, a cool indie sci-fi movie about gig work and giant cubes, and an album I need your help with

Do you have horror stories of bad meetings about A.I.?

More reading about A.I., a fun new flick about an iconic tech company, and a great fuzzy indie album

The Read Max A.I. Reading List

A great Y2K corporate-espionage thriller, pre-'Dune 2' reading, and good backpack rap

Why I'm on strike

🚨 READ MAX FASHION ALERT: Read Max caps now available for purchase

More reading about Buzzfeed and Gawker, an underrated Denzel Washington mystery, and a good country-rock reissue

Buzzfeed, Gawker, and the end of the 2010s

Yet more of what I'm reading about A.I., a great mixed-reality TV show, and a great new music newsletter

The A.I. business influencer guys must be stopped

Erotic thriller recommendations from Allison Davis, what I'm reading about the group-chat Pentagon leaks, and three summer-jam contenders

This I vow to you, David Zaslav, you blackguard, you wretch: only one Max will survive

Every pair of cool sunglasses in the 1992 direct-to-video masterpiece "Nemesis" (dir. Albert Pyun)

An incredible cyberpunk b-movie, some excellent non-tech thrillers, and more

Why would anyone subscribe to a social media platform?

The best "true-crime" movie of the 2010s, my favorite Elmore Leonard novels, even more A.I. reading, and more

What's happening with Twitter? and other reader questions

Seeking your questions for a Read Max mailbag

Smart stuff I'm reading about A.I., a really cool documentary about the old internet and "Mulholland Drive," and more

What Facebook criticism can teach us about A.I. criticism

What I'm reading about the banking crisis, a Lance Reddick short fantasy film, and more

Lessons from the Silicon Valley Bank bailout

More of what I'm reading about Silicon Valley Bank, Cool Old Michelle Yeoh movies, and more

What happened with Silicon Valley Bank?

A classic track rescued from a Dad Thriller soundtrack, two fascinating books about why special effects look like that, and more

Real fake movie posters and fake real stores

A cool cyberpunk-espionage-pirate-adventure sci-fi trilogy, a great '90s neo-noir, and

Can orb unseat cube in the Geometric Solid Power Rankings?

Reading about UFOs, great post-post-punk mixes, and a charming and beautiful Italian comedy

What is the most important tweet of all time?

What I'm reading about A.I., a laid-back spy caper, and an overlooked album from a '90s one-hit wonder

A.I. Saddam Hussein picks the Chiefs to win the Super Bowl

Find a good movie to watch or book to read with Read Max

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All the Roundups

An overlooked James Bond classic, excellent college jangle-rock, and more

Two paths for AI journalism

The greatest crime series of this millennium, fascinating plane-crash mysteries, and more

A.I. Saddam Hussein and A.I. Michel Foucault pick their NFL Conference Championship winners

Editing the New York Times

How 'Tár' gets social media right (and wrong), great music by a professional whistler (really), and more

The reanimated A.I. corpses of Saddam Hussein, Michel Foucault, and warrior queen Boudica pick winners in the NFL Playoffs Divisional Round

Matt Yglesias and the secret of blogging

A great proto-Halogencore thriller, a fascinating experimental novel about the day Hitler died, and more

Seven questions to ask about A.I.

A fascinating document of internet subculture and a great sci-fi movie finally on streaming

Read Max Character Watch 2023