Reading and viewing plans for 2026

 

Two Pride and Prejudice series are coming up: a Netflix straight adaptation (top) and The Other Bennet Sister by the BBC (bottom). 

1/ I wrote in December 2024: 

“Even if there is little impact, I can’t help feeling an urge to fight against anti-intellectualism and inverted snobbery, against identity politics and Critical Race Theory, against philistinism and the School of Resentment. 

One of the ways to fight is reading and analysing and promoting classic books.

[…] Even if the philistines and authoritarians win, even if the public becomes increasingly ignorant of classic works because of tiktoks and a million other distractions, I will not lose—because these books I read are mine.” 

That still stands. 

Compare the reading ideas in that blog post and the recent post about my reading in 2025, I’ve done quite well, haven’t I? So for next year, I intend to: 

• Continue getting to know ancient Greek literature and culture. 
• Explore the ancient Rome. 
• Start on the King James Bible. 

These are the main reading projects. Why the Bible? some of you might ask. It’s one of the most important texts in the world, and one of the texts that shaped Western civilisation. I read Western literature not knowing any of the Biblical stories; I wander through the National Gallery not catching any of the religious references; that has to change. Shakespeare is going to look very different once I have read Ovid and the Bible.

As my interest in the Bible is literary rather than religious, I guess I don’t need to explain why I’m going for the King James version rather than something more modern.

Some other reading ideas scattering around: 

• Read more Dickens, possibly Our Mutual Friend. 
• Explore more of the 18th century. 
• Read some non-Western books (such as the Akutagawa book I recently bought on impulse in Jakarta). 
• Possibly reread Wuthering Heights.

2/ There are quite a few adaptations of classics that are currently out or soon appearing: 

• Guillermo del Toro’s Frankenstein: you don’t expect me to watch this one, do you? This is by one of the worst directors working today. 
• Emerald Fennell’s Wuthering Heights: all the promos I have seen—the trailer especially—tell me that the writer-director has not read the novel. I might however watch it for a laugh. 
• Chloe Zhao’s Hamnet: no, I don’t intend to watch a film about Shakespeare when the director says she understands about a third of Shakespeare’s language and has to rely on the actor—not a Shakespearean actor and not an expert—for interpretation. 
• Christopher Nolan’s The Odyssey: everything tells me I’m going to hate this film—why is Hollywood scared of colours?—but bring it on, I’m ready to yell at Nolan. 
• Euros Lyn’s Pride and Prejudice (Netflix): do we really need another version of Pride and Prejudice? The perfect version exists (1995). I don’t really like Jack Lowden and Emma Corrin as Mr Darcy and Elizabeth Bennet, and don’t have any positive feelings towards Netflix—the only appeal is Olivia Colman as Mrs Bennet. I might still see it though, unless it turns out to be like Netflix’s Persuasion. 
• Jennifer Sheridan’s The Other Bennet Sister (BBC): we have another Pride and Prejudice series coming up, but this one looks more interesting as it does something different—focuses on Mary Bennet—and seems to have more colours. 
• Georgia Oakley’s Sense and Sensibility: there isn’t much to say as I haven’t seen anything about this upcoming film except the cast. Would it be as good as the Ang Lee film? Most likely not. But I don’t think anyone’s going to disagree that, much as we love Emma Thompson, she’s a bit too old for Elinor. 
• Emma Frost’s The Age of Innocence (Netflix): look, can this possibly match the perfection that is the Martin Scorsese film? Daniel Day-Lewis? Michelle Pfeiffer? Winona Ryder? We don’t need another adaptation.   

What did I miss? 

3/ I don’t really have any plans for film watching, other than that I’d like to watch more films from the 1930s.