Books: Children of Wolves, A Novel by Lawrence Osborne, 2026

Very disappointed by the latest novel of Lawrence Osborne, an author I have been recommending left and right in the last five years. I can’t believe that after Hunters in the Dark, The Forgiven, and Beautiful Animals (the works that I rate highest among his oeuvre) he penned this half-baked story.

The plot of the novel, the mechanism that makes all its other parts tick is very week, to the point of not making much sense. What would you think of a terrorist cell of four who select one of them to commit the murder of their target, but then all of them have to be present at the glamorous event where the murder is supposed to happen without any of them having a role in the murder – just to have to plan their escapes?! Why would they need to be at this event in the first place?! Just to hang out and then escape?!

Things like that, as well as other non-consequential happenings, make you think what is mandatory for a good novel – it can’t offer just cool settings, ethnographic details like Turkish cuisine and drinks, descriptions of exotic Istanbul topoi, clothing, and expensive hotels…The characters are vague, their motives banal, they can be reduced just to their physical descriptions and some random behavior that does not engage the reader. The plot cannot withstand a very basic logical questioning.

What happened? It seemed like the author had a contract with the publisher and had to churn up something in a hurry….What a pity.

Books: Strangers: A Memoir of Marriage by Belle Burden

Would this book be so popular if the author had not been a high society Martha’s Vineyard housewife, Babe Paley’s granddaughter, and a Vanderbilt descendant? The simple answer is – no.

Still, it addresses every housewife’s deep fear of her husband cheating on her. It is like cancer – you may have it and not know about it. Hence, the popularity of the book. It is also intelligently written and offers some insights into women’s choices regarding marriage, career, and parenting. These insights are not particularly new or original. Belle Burden realizes she has traded safety and security for independence. She has consciously selected not to know or care about family finances and has focused on raising her children. The most original, probably, revelation of the book is that actually divorce is NOT the end of a woman’s life and can make a woman a better person!

What I find problematic about this book is that its main premise – living twenty years with a “stranger” – does not ring true. Whose fault is it that Belle Buden did not know much about her husband. He was visiting the family on weekends and spending one week with them at Martha’s Vineyard during the summer. The author points out as proof of her happy years with her husband the fact that he made family videos, that they had a common diary (as newlyweds), and that he was a caring parent ( except for doing baths and homework). The signs of a non-functioning family are in plain sight. This is though, the acceptable marriage model for stay-at-home mothers who are “provided” and have given up their careers. Well, who made this choice? The choice not to be interested in financial matters, not to go to work, not to deal with bosses and difficult colleagues, but instead drive the children to school and various activities, play tennis and go to parties, enjoy long walks, meet friends while the kids are at school, and basically take it easy! I am not sure the insights of such a female can be valid for the majority of modern women.

The shock of the husband’s not willing to explain why he left is a bit overplayed. He was alienated, not entirely present, very powerful, rich, and he already had his own life apart from the family. He just formalized through a divorce the choices he had already made. Makes you wonder what the author’s standards or notions of a good marriage were not to have noticed that.

The choice of a phony person and a narcissistic actress like Gwyneth Paltrow to play the main character in the future film Strangers is quite symptomatic, no?

Books: Look What You Made Me Do, A Novel by John Lanchester

It is a pleasure read and it gives you the feeling it was written for pleasure by John Lanchester. Inspires me to read more of his writing. Maybe, next one on my to read list will be his most famous novel Capital.

The plot is engaging as all revenge stories are. Closer to the end, it becomes predictable and a bit repetitive. Not all plot twists need to be explained as the narrator Kate does…But the plot meanderings are not the main source of the pleasure of reading. It is the language – incisive and witty. Lanchester has the gift of capturing and representing truthfully the class and age of his characters by rendering their conversations – intellectual discourse, dinner banter, intimate dialogue. He makes you reflect on the nature of willful or just fashionable socializing, of courtship and friendship, of passion and jealousy – through language. Kate, one of the two main narrators in the novel gets plunged into misery by witnessing her most intimate marital discourse becoming the dialogue of a popular TV show. Phoebe – the second narrator, pleases most with her cynical and blunt descriptions of her manipulative and deeply unhappy mother Sarah.

The other feature of this novel that contributes greatly to the pleasure of reading it is the deeply amoral nature of its characters (but they are all super intelligent). There are no “nice” people in this book (except for probably Phoebe’s partner). Thus the book, never gets didactic. It just follows the domino effect of people’s egotistical behavior – the effect of “look what YOU made me do”. Everybody is “innocent” as the ending suggests. It is other people that make us behave badly and Lanchester’s point is that this bad behavior is quite enjoyable. The characters just can’t help it.

The description of the Oxford students’ love triangle was great. The seventies atmosphere, the college culture, the excitement of complex and playful but in the end life-defining relationships – all captured so well! Makes you realize how the act of “falling in love” breakes all the rules of decency and has nothing to do with morality or generosity of spirit.

Film: The Odyssey, Directed by Christopher Nolan, 2026

Much anticipated and ultimately quite disappointing. This is a film made with its eyes firmly fixed on the prize. It will almost certainly earn Christopher Nolan the long-coveted Oscar, but it may also come to define the last great Hollywood director under the age of eighty as a filmmaker willing to compromise his artistic integrity. Too much of the film seems designed to please the Academy rather than to remain faithful to its own artistic vision.

As someone smartly noted – this is “an Odyssey” not “the Odyssey”. Its interpretation of the ancient epic poem is grossly modernized. Thus, it becomes symptomatic of our time – the Odyssey of 2026. It is made as an antiwar movie – Odysseus carries the guilt of creating the Trojan horse and destroying Troy. It seems that Nolan wants to continue here the Oppenheimer theme – Odysseus as Oppenheimer and the Trojan horse as the atomic bomb. He should have done a better job in exposing the LACK of guild in Oppenheimer in his biopic instead of now injecting alien to the Greek epic ideas. Having Helen of Troy send her apologies to Odysseus for causing the Trojan war – this is done in very poor taste and is one of the film’s most ludicrous lines. Basically, all the faults of the film are inherent in the script – the modern concepts, (e.g. Odysseus as a “veteran” of the Trojan war with a PTSD), the modern street language, the pseudo psychological insights…All tasteless.

The above is combined with some very long action scenes. The viewer might keep thinking how difficult it was to film all these given that Nolan uses very little CGI. Still, appreciating the “difficulty”, or the craftsmanship is not enough for truly liking the film.

One of the most annoying performances in the film is that of Anne Hathaway. Otherwise a fine actress (e.g. WeCrashed), she is definitely inappropriately cast. She sentimentalizes the character, her trembling chin is ridiculous, her hissing remarks about not being able to become the queen of Ithaca are out of place (here the blame goes to the script again), etc. etc. An infantile audience could be fooled that this is high art, but most vieweres understand that here we are dealing with the interpretation of one of the foundational works of the Western canon and things can’t be that literal and simplistic!

Books: The Calamity Club, A Novel by Kathryn Stockett, 2026

It is a very hard read – too long and too “all-over-the-place.” I doubt many readers who begin it can endure to the end (at least without skipping pages.) Stockett wanted to touch on so many subjects of “woke” nature that it became a book about everything. The story of an orphan trapped in an unjust orphanage system, a single female struggling with financial hardship, a gay husband and his family wishing to “cure” him, a goodhearted wealthy alcoholic, a single mother sent to jail by a racist society, etc. etc.

All of this is told from an overtly feminist perspective, despite being set in 1930s Mississippi. The novel finally descends into implausibility when its three central female characters establish and successfully run a brothel in Oxford, Mississippi, as a way of surviving the economic devastation of the Great Depression. As a plot device—and as a statement of feminist empowerment, it sounds ludicrous.

There is not one original idea in this book – everything is predictable because it is premised on an ideological matrix – the plight of women and gays in the 20th century American South. Nothing to discover here, nothing we did not already know. The characters are sentimentalized and well-designed to fit the scheme of historical critique intended by Stockett.

Books: Question 7, by Richard Flanagan, 2023

Not quite a novel, the book is part memoir part journalistic non-fiction, and research-based fictionalization of the development of nuclear science leading to the creation of the atomic bomb.

It is a example of late-modernist type of literature where personal accounts mix with research and scientific exploration of (most frequently) atrocities committed by humanity against itself, wars, genocides, environmental disasters – of the type of W.G. Sebald and his book “The Rings of Saturn.” Or, to use Flanagan’s own example, it follows H. G. Wells, who, he argues, “reinvented journalism as literature, prefiguring much of what literature would become.” Unfortunately, that is indeed what much contemporary literature has become. One need only look at recent Nobel laureates such as Olga Tokarczuk and Annie Ernaux.

The most exciting pages of the book cover the affair between H.G.Wells and Rebecca West. They are full of psychological insight, stylistic craftsmanship, and literary history fictionalized in a hilarious ingenious way.

By contrast, the sections devoted to the author’s earliest memories, family history, and portraits of his parents and relatives come across as deeply narcissistic. The attempt to filter major historical events through intensely personal experience is often irritating, if not self-aggrandizing. Reading and interpreting history through a fictionalized “I” raises questions about the ethical implications of such an approach.

Flanagan’s philosophising about the past, is at best helpless – “the past stays with us, that what was, is and shall be”, what is happening has happened and will always happen and other similar “deep thoughts” sound hollow.

The title of the book is taken from a Chekhov’s story – and again Flanagan misinterprets Chekhov by trying to imbue some grand meaning into the question “Who loves longer.” Where Chekhov is parodying, Flanagan is sentimentalising. The latter is right about one thing – his book is asking questions, without providing answers. As in Chekhov’s stories “the only people who have all the answers are the fools.”

Books: More Than Enough, A Novel by Anna Quindlen, 2026

Anna Quindlen is an achiever in fiction writing. She knows the rules and she is so industrious, so detail oriented, so sensitive to women issues, mood swings, and life’s surprises that you can’t really complain about the quality of her writing. And — still you can! This book attempts to cover absolutely everything—and does so formulaically. It feels as though Quindlen gathered a checklist of every modern female concern, striving to address each one without ever achieving depth or finding an original angle. While she occasionally captures a sharp detail or mirrors a familiar feeling perfectly, the overall narrative ultimately leaves an aftertaste of banality and dissatisfaction.

This clutter is the inevitable result of cramming a dizzying array of subplots into a single novel:

  • Mother-daughter friction
  • Deep father-daughter affection
  • Cross-marital betrayal
  • Late-in-life discovery of a biological father
  • Dealing with a parent’s dementia
  • A sister’s tight bond with her gay brother
  • Watching a fabulous best friend die of cancer
  • Chronic parental self-doubt
  • The quiet grief of a childless family
  • Desperation to conceive
  • A child coping with maternal loss

While Quindlen meticulously anchors these subtopics to her protagonist, the execution feels synthetic. In the end, it feels like she was busy checking boxes rather than writing about life itself.

Books: Contrapposto, A Novel by Dave Eggers, 2026

Contrapposto is another strong novel by Dave Eggers, whose The Circle demonstrated his talent for satirizing the cultural tendencies of the internet age: the erosion of privacy, the oppressive culture of technology companies, and the growing influence of social networks on everyday life.

In Contrapposto (the title refers to the classical artistic pose most famously exemplified by Michelangelo’s David), Eggers turns his attention to the contemporary art world. His target is the dominance of postmodern conceptual art, where technical skill and beauty have increasingly been displaced by interpretation, theory, and narrative.

The novel’s finest pages are those depicting the destructive role of university art education. Eggers’s satirical portrait of Cricket’s art class, where the work of the only genuinely gifted student is mercilessly criticized for being representational, is both hilarious and convincing. Equally entertaining are the scenes set in the gallery during Cricket’s internship and Eggers’s portrayal of the “business” of conceptual art through Kyle, a wildly successful artist who hires technically skilled painters to execute his ideas while he serves merely as the project’s facilitator. In this world, “interpretation” becomes the art per se, while beauty in the classical sense of the word and art’s ability to reveal the mystery of reality have become irrelevant. Some of the university scenes are reminiscent of Zadie Smith’s On Beauty, particularly its critique of the contemporary teaching practices in the arts and humanities.

The novel follows Cricket, a talented painter, a someone “who can draw” from childhood to old age. Through him Eggers tries to explore what becomes of an artist unwilling to SELL? At best, he works for figures like Kyle, paints copies of classical masterpieces, or teaches others how to draw. Eggers suggests that there is dignity and contentment in such a life. Recreating beauty and passing on artistic skill are meaningful alternatives to commercial success.

Cricket’s trajectory is contrasted with that of Olympia, the love of his life. Armed with multiple degrees in art, she moves from gallery work and curating to advising wealthy collectors on art investments. Together, Cricket and Olympia embody two opposing ways of living within the art world: one devoted to artistic creation, the other to the institutions and markets that surround it.

The novel raises important questions about the place and purpose of art in contemporary society. Pitching it primarily as a story of friendship between Cricket and Olympia does it a disservice. The sex scenes that accompany their love story are quite campy and rather belong to a conventional romance novel. Yet, as representatives of two competing visions of art and artistic life, Cricket and Olympia are interesting and convincing. Their parallel trajectories, marked by a sympathetic dose of madness, disillusionment, and decline, ring true and contribute to the profound sadness that permeates the novel’s closing pages.

Books: Rivals, A Novel by Jilly Cooper, 1988

The ultimate politically incorrect book!

I came across Jilly Cooper when exploring subgenres of the romance novel. What a prolific writer she is – and how popular she was in the 1980s! Her specialty is the “bonkbuster”: a novel that involves sex, glamour, wealth, power, and plenty of rivalry – business or sexual or both…Her women are “bitches” and her men are “macho”. Cooper herself once complained that her American film adaptations are “demachoing” her characters.

Cooper gets thumbs up for her satirical or quite cynical representation of the upper middle class and all the stupidity and arrogance underlying wealth. Another favorite topic of hers is talent – talented characters can get away with anything. This is exemplified in characters like Declan, Rebecca, Lizzie -a journalist, a producer, and a writer, respectivly. And the author’s ultimate favorite is a character like Rupert Campbell-Black – a sparkling combination of physical beauty, wit, and cynicism (but eventually revealing the macho’s romantic underbelly). One can’t help giving Cooper credit for being able to handle multiple characters tangled in complex relationships, intrigue, drama, failure and triumph to result eventually in a pop-culture’s trashy page-turner. Her concept of human psychology is quite superficial and her achiever characters’ motivation is mainly what passes for success – wealth, power, social recognition, and above all – “winning”!

Apart from some witty lines, the book is quite forgettable but undeniably hits some buttons that the audience always responds to – what would it be if they become suddenly very rich, handsome, sexually irresistible, smart and popular?!

Dream on, ladies…

Films: TV: Cape Fear, TV Series, 2026

Braking a major rule here – writing a review after watching only episode one of the newly released Cape Fear! But usually the first episode sets the stage for what is to be expected. And it is not good. Not good, at all. And “it is the script, stupid”!One can only feel sorry for the talented actors doing their best with such substandard material, especially given the strength of the previous adaptations.

I suppose, the major blame goes to creator Nick Antosca and a long list of staff writers.

The main flaws:

The main character Max Cady, just released from prison, is introduced in a very unintelligent way. At a major fundraising event, he takes the microphone from Ana Bowden—who seems oddly unbothered by the interruption—and proceeds to deliver a long, dull, and dumb speech. Writers, what were you thinking?

The threat that is supposed to surround the Bowden family couldn’t be more banal and silly as well – skunks drowned in their pool, front door alarm sounding, AND a real tiger appearance. To turn a tiger metaphor from the 1991 Cape Fear (Scorcese) into a zoo animal – how literal can you go!

The Bowden family itself is quite sleazy so why route for them? The ex-prisoner, the supposed embodiment of evil, lacks layers and layers of complexity so perfectly intertwining in Robert DeNiro’s interpretation of Cady in the 1991 version.

Not worth watching further.