Media highlights 2026 (Jan to June)

Published 29 June 2026

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The reading, listening, and watching I most enjoyed from the first half of 2026.

Ordering remains arbitrary. Let me know if you find something from this list that you end up liking!

Books

Show notes →

It feels a bit silly to write a ‘review’ of The Bible. What am I supposed to say? I certainly found it weirder than expected: the stories are so laundered into our culture that you forget some of come from Iron Age civilisations. As r/atheism will let you know, there is plenty of capricious divine violence, and condoning of human brutality and slavery and sexism and so on. But way more characteristic and memorable, at least in the Old Testament, are the endless descriptions of genealogy and ritual: how many cubits of acacia wood for the tabernacle, how to burn sacrificial meat, which forefather begat whom. I was also stuck by how much of Christian doctrine is not made explicit in the Bible, but came from interpretation and tradition after and beyond the Bible.

Some books of the Bible are, of course, deserving staples of world literature, and there is a great deal of beauty and lyricism and humanity and even humour.

Show notes →

Justice by way of painstaking journalism.

Whitman, ‘Crossing Brooklyn Ferry’ —

Others will enter the gates of the ferry and cross from shore to shore, Others will watch the run of the flood-tide, Others will see the shipping of Manhattan north and west, and the heights of Brooklyn to the south and east, Others will see the islands large and small; Fifty years hence, others will see them as they cross, the sun half an hour high, A hundred years hence, or ever so many hundred years hence, others will see them, Will enjoy the sunset, the pouring-in of the flood-tide, the falling-back to the sea of the ebb-tide.

Caro —

But the last smile was Moses’. [F]ifty-two Astoria residents who had come down to the Astoria pier for old times’ sake (plus twelve other persons who just wanted to get to Manhattan) boarded the Rockaway for its last round trip across the river […] As the Rockaway [ferry], having completed the round trip, bumped into the Astoria slip for the last time, they sang “Auld Lang Syne.” Then, as the old tub left for the Brooklyn pier where she was to be laid up, her captain blew three long, dolorous whistle blasts of farewell. Hardly had the last note faded when it was succeeded by dull heavy thuds—the pound of Moses’ pile driver, tearing the ferryhouse down again.

As far as I can tell, the name of Jane Jacobs isn't mentioned once in the main text. Apparently Caro wrote an entire chapter on the Jacobs / Moses feud, a chapter he was proud of; but it was cut for space along with some other 400,000 words or so.

Still Caro was greatly influenced by The Death and Life of Great American Cities, though they only got speak after the book was published —

Jane had moved to Toronto, but some years after The Power Broker came out, Mary called and said Jane was coming to New York and would like to meet me […] And I remember that Jane Jacobs and I sat the whole evening on the sofa talking.

Of course, what we wound up talking about was Robert Moses. He didn't like either one of us very much. We had a great talk. It turned out that we each had a question that we wanted to ask the other. Jane wanted to ask me what it was like to meet him. I wanted to ask her, what it was like to beat him.

Show notes →

Rollicking stories of defence R&D from c. 1950–80. Cold War, Vietnam War, Gulf War; Dragon Lady, Blackbird, Nighthawk; jet fuel, testosterone.

A favourite anecdote:

We were issued [cyanide pills] in case of capture and torture and all that good stuff, but given the option whether to use it or not. But [the pilot] didn't know the cyanide was in the right breast pocket of his coveralls when he dropped in a fistful of lemon-flavored cough drops. The cyanide pill was supposed to be in an inside pocket. Vito felt his throat go dry as he approached Moscow for the first time […] so he fished in his pocket for a cough drop and grabbed the cyanide pill instead and popped it into his mouth. He started to suck on it […] and spit it out in horror before it could take effect. Had he bit down he would have died instantly and crashed right into Red Square.

I also have a Goodreads (and written reviews live here).

Music

No particular ordering, as usual.

Jazz —

Bossa & samba —

Soul & pop —

Rock —

Dream pop & shoegaze —

Electronic —

Folk & Americana —

Global —

Classical & minimalism —

Songs —

I log most things on rateyourmusic.com. I also have a Spotify with some playlists.

Films and videos

Film and TV —

Videos —

Blogs and essays

Previous lists

Again, please let me know if you find something from this list which you end up enjoying. And please do send me recs of your own!


(Image) Emile Claus - Soirée d’été (1895)
Emile Claus - Soirée d’été (1895)



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