A spooky fantastical historical seafaring novel; an appealing new lived-in noir-ish thriller; and more

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:

• A strange and uncanny new novel about a tragic whaling mission;

• newsletters, essays, and columns on You Can See Everything, taste, black October, and the women who love "haunt sliders";

• a fun, charming, extremely entertaining noir that's like if Good Will Hunting were a thriller; and

• four tracks I've been listening to a lot lately.

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Now, the roundup:...