I was impressed how they adapted the LONG, SILLY, CONFUSING ancient Greek epic poem watchable by a modern audience.
It doesn’t look an A.I. monstrosity. Director Nolan prefers practical, “old school” in-camera special effects over CGI.
Modern language, American accents, and profanity are a bit shocking at first. But I got used to it.
Cast is great: Matt Damon stars as Odysseus, alongside Anne Hathaway (Penelope), Tom Holland (Telemachus), Robert Pattinson (Antinous), Zendaya (Athena), and Charlize Theron (Calypso).
The blind friend and servant Eumaeus, played by John Leguizamo is particularly interesting and original.
A massive portion of this success is driven by the audio format. The series has accumulated over 140 million hours of listening time through Soundbooth Theater and Audible. The audio book reader is great ➙ Jeff Hays.
An alien corporation instantly flattens every man-made structure on Earth, killing billions of people indoors.
The remaining survivors are herded into a massive, 18-level subterranean dungeon.
This dungeon operates as a sadistic, televised intergalactic reality game show watched by trillions of aliens across the universe.
To survive, the “crawlers” must fight monsters, level up their stats, find gear, and entertain the bloodthirsty audience to gain sponsors
Carl: A 27-year-old Coast Guard veteran who enters the dungeon wearing nothing but boxer shorts, a leather jacket, and no shoes—accompanied by an incredibly snarky AI that has a strange obsession with his bare feet.
Princess Donut: His ex-girlfriend’s prize-winning Persian show cat. After consuming a magical pet biscuit early on, she gains human-level sentience, the ability to speak, and becomes a powerful, spell-slinging diva
Why is Carl with his ex-girlfriend’s fussy cat? Prior to writing the series, Matt Dinniman had made his living going to cat shows and drawing illustrations of cats for their owners. When Covid hit, those cat shows were cancelled, so he spent his time writing.
I love cycling — but was intimidated by bike traffic in Rotterdam.
Netherlands has the highest bike ownership in the world, with over 24 million bicycles for a population of 18 million people, and cycling makes up roughly 27% of all daily trips nationwide.
Over 35,000 kilometers of segregated red-asphalt cycle paths, dedicated traffic lights, and continuous bike routes.
In 2011, I was nothing but impressed.
But in 2026 … I find the higher speed eBikes too dangerous.
Helmets are not required.
I saw people in the busy city texting while on an electric bike at 25km / hour or more.
For some years, cyclists represent the largest share of traffic fatalities (281 deaths), outpacing passenger car occupants (228 deaths).
At least 41% of those killed while cycling were riding an e-bike, and the sharpest increase in deaths occurred specifically among men aged 70 and older. I’m age-68.
Fatbikes ridden by young men seemed the biggest danger to me.
This one is better, but still a bit rambling and confused.
I couldn’t understand how the characters could so quickly & easily teleport between Italy, Sweden, California, Barcelona, and Quiz Night at Steve’s quiet village pub.
Comedy seems the goal, not the plot. And it is very funny.
… sunrise in the picturesque Italian hills, where a dead body is discovered on the steps of a luxury private villa. Found on the corpse is a threatening note signed by a mysterious entity.
Back at agency headquarters, the mismatched detective trio—Amy Wheeler (a fierce global security expert), Steve Wheeler (her structured, retired-cop father-in-law), and Rosie D’Antonio (a larger-than-life, bestselling author who finances the operation)—leap at the opportunity to sink their teeth into their first official case.
Their client, a wealthy supplement mogul hiding out in a high-security compound, has clear motives for keeping the police out of the loop.
Ransom (2026) is latest in the fantastic Gabriel Allon series.
Excellent, as always.
No car chases. No gun fights.
Instead, believable, high-stakes tradecraft and classic suspense reminiscent of John le Carré.
It’s very up-to-date with references to Putin’s war against Ukraine. And believable technology.
It predicts the future of terrorists (Putin in this case) using drones to disable airports. To assassinate.
Legendary Israeli spy and master art restorer Gabriel Allon is reluctantly drawn out of his retirement after a prominent British real estate tycoon, Edward Knight, pleads for his help.
Knight’s glamorous socialite wife, Alice Winter, has vanished without a trace while vacationing with old university classmates in Ibiza.
As Allon launches his investigation using professional kidnap and ransom (K&R) strategies, he uncovers a web of deception.
What initially looks like a standard kidnapping unfolds into a massive international plot involving Russian bad actors who are laundering and manipulating money.
Silva has historically supported Israel and centered his long-running spy series on Gabriel Allon, a Jewish Mossad leader. He conspicuously mentions nothing about Israel in this book. It’s difficult to defend Israel right now after counting how many Palestinian children have been killed.
At the World Gymnastics Championships, many nations of the world come together. What do we have in common?
Gymnastics.
Ukraine and Russia are here. Israel and Iran.
It reminded me of that fantastic 2017 viral Danish television ad titled “All That We Share”.
More important than ever in 2026 where social media algorithms push controversial issues, driving people apart.
The video addresses societal divisions by placing diverse groups of people into taped-off “boxes” on a floor (such as high earners vs. those just getting by, new Danes vs. those whose families have always lived there, and religious vs. self-confident).
A moderator asks a series of personal and shared-experience questions (e.g., Who has been bullied? Who is in love? Who has seen a UFO? Who has saved a life?)
As people step out of their assigned boxes and mingle based on shared human experiences, the ad concludes with the message: “So maybe there’s more that brings us together than we think.”
But most interesting character is her niece Lucy, who’s in town visiting for Christmas holidays. A brilliant tech genius, computer hacker, and argumentative teenager.
Scarpetta is called in to autopsy the body of convicted murderer Ronnie Waddell after his execution.
Several days after the execution, a young boy is discovered murdered in the fashion of Waddell’s earlier killings, with Waddell’s prints near the body.
Scarpetta, along with FBI Agent Benton Wesley and Detective Pete Marino, try to discover how a dead inmate could have possibly committed another murder after his death.
As the story progresses she seeks the assistance of her 17-year-old niece, Lucy, after she discovers a strange folder on her computer.
Kay Scarpetta is Chief Medical Examiner in Virginia. Nicole Kidman plays her in the TV adaptation. I couldn’t get through the 1st episode.
I’m no particular fan of Jon Hamm, but he’s perfect for this role.
Cast is great, in fact.
The season follows Andrew “Coop” Cooper (Jon Hamm), a former hedge fund manager in the wealthy enclave of Westmont Village who turns to burglarizing his affluent neighbors to maintain his lifestyle after losing his job and his marriage.
Things look really, really bad for Coop. Yet the ending is upbeat. The best part, I thought.
In general, I hate books, TV, and movies where rich, privileged people do incredibly stupid things. Like this show.
Best psychological thriller / murder mystery I’ve read in a while.
David Ellis really knows how to write these things.
He’s actually a an American Appellate Court Judge. And writes books in his spare time.
Keep Them Close (2026) centers on two fiercely loyal siblings, Allison and Luke, whose tight bond begins to fracture when Allison’s husband, Finley, is brutally murdered.
As the police investigation intensifies, it threatens to dig up a web of dangerous, long-buried secrets that the siblings share, including:
An illicit affair.
A decades-old accident that permanently altered their lives.
Layers of stunning deception.
Told through multiple points of view with fast-paced, short chapters, the novel forces both the characters and the reader to question exactly how far the siblings will go to keep their secrets hidden—and whether they can even trust each other anymore.
Like his previous book, I thought the ending was terrific. Uplifting and unexpected.
