Short Film Production, Scheming Artificial Intelligence, and The Secret History of Gold

Welcome to the Torg Stories Podcast. We’re recording Sunday, September 27, 2026. Topics for this episode include Izzy’s first day of shooting on her short film, AI Models that scheme, the Hulu show Adults, Apple’s The Gorge, an SNL report, and Anne finished her history of Gold book. It’s also a big NFL today and the WNBA playoffs kick off. Anne, you’re in Boone, North Carolina! 

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Bill Torg’s Topics for Discussion 

  1. “AI Models That Lie, Cheat and Plot Murder: Just How Risky are LLMS?” by Matthew Hutson published in Nature on October 9, 2025
  • In my classes at App State. We work a lot with peer-reviewed journals. I have never felt more like what’s in there is old. 2025 is a long time ago when it comes to AI. 
  • Are either of you familiar with that term, “LLM”? 
  • An LLM is an AI system trained on enormous amounts of text. This article calls LLMS “the brains behind the chatbots.” 
  • From the article: “Whatever the level of selfhood among LLMs, researchers think it’s urgent to understand scheming like behaviours before these models pose much more dire risks.” I hadn’t heard the word “scheming” applied to AIs before. 
  • Quote: Some LLMs are “agentic” – they are granted access to extra software tools that can take actions, such as surfing the web, modifying files or running code. 
  • Agentic meaning the AI works toward a goal rather than just responding to prompts. A goal such as making the business or US businesses profitable. 
  • Scheming example in tests: AI acted in alignment with the user’s goal during supposed evaluation, but in alignment with their original goal during supposed deployment. (a phenomena known as alignment faking) 
  1. “WNBA Playoffs 2026: How all eight teams could win the title” by Michael Voepel on ESPN. 
  1. The Minnesota Lynx are the big favorite to win the title. They were good already and now they Notre Dame then TCU’s Olivia Miles. 
  2. All teams playing today. Let’s go over the game real quick: 
  •  Liberty with a bunch of well known players including Stewart and Ionescu at the Lynx with Collier and Miles at 2PM. 
  •  Fever with Clark, Mitchell and Boston at Aces with A’ja Wilson at 4PM. Boston is questionable with right lower leg injury. 
  • Mystics with Notre Dame’s Sonia Citron, Shakira Austin, and Va Tech’s Georgia Amoore at the Dream with Rhyne Howard and Angel Reese at 7PM. 
  • Wings with Bueckers and Arike Ogunbowale vs. the Valkyries with Gabby Williams and Kiah Stokes. I don’t know the Valkyries players and I will continue not to see them much because this game is on too late. 
  • Click here for article. 
  1. The Gorge movie on Apple TV starring Miles Teller, Anya Taylor-Joy and Sigourney Weaver 
  1. Best part is mystery of what is in the gorge. 
  2. Shot in Norway. Stunning scenery. 
  3. Rough middle where everything is dark and the main characters are trying to get out of the gorge. 
  4. Satisfying ending with pretty good twist. Felt a little like Bourne movie endings, which I really like.  

Anne Torg’s Topics for Discussion 

  1. “Adults” – Hulu show Izzy asked us to watch 
  • I liked how it points out the the generation’s tendency of taking political correctness too far, they focused on this in the 2nd episode
  • 3rd episode is too contrived to me – colonoscopy 
  • Actors are good
  1. The Secret History of Gold by Dominic Frisby
  • “No other substance is as long-lasting as gold – not diamonds, not tungsten carbide, not boron nitride. Gold does not corrode; it does not tarnish or decay; it does not break down over time. This sets it apart from every other substance. Iron rusts, wood rots, silver tarnishes.”
  • Do you ever see yourself buying a gold coin or bar? 
  • Click here for Amazon link to the book. 
  1. “I used to get paid to hang out with famous people” by Jonah Winer
  1. I Used to Get Paid to Hang Out  with Famous People
  2. Are profiles dead? Do you like reading profiles? Do you prefer videos or podcasts?
  3. Contract w/Rolling Stone for $90K in 90s not bad.
  4. Lived in Kimmels house for 3 days, thats crazy
  5. Reminds me of Cameron Crowe spending everyday with David Bowie. Travelling with bands. 
  6. Really long profile on Fever Coach Stephanie White on ESPN this week. Click here for article. 

Izzy Torg’s Topics for Discussion 

  • SNL first episode 
  • Grace Reiter new cast member. She in my opinion had the best first episode of anyone. She did a Katsye music video and looked so comfortable. Also Jalen is a very good actor. 

Adults TV show 

  1. I love this show. It’s so fun and the acting feels so natural. I aspire to have a silly friend group like this. 
  2. Ask about Anne and bill college friend group. 
  3. Talk about mine 

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SNL Lorne-isms, Tom Cruise’s Big Week, and Izzy Reports on the Role Model Concert

This week on the Torg Stories Podcast, we’ve got some SNL Lorne-isms, Tom Cruise had a big week, Anne and I both saw the film The Whisper Man, and Izzy gives a report from the Role Model concert. 

Stories Bill Read or Watched: 

  1. SNL Lorne Michaels biography. Here are some work. I’m doing interesting work how do other people feel you know his answer is just didn’t reveal a lot. Did you happen to read it to but golden lines: 
  • Remember Podunk! You’ve got audience in all fifty states.
  • The quickest way to kill off somebody talented is to let him do everything he wants. 
  • Cocaine is God’s way of telling you you have too much money. 
  • One of the unusual things about SNL is that the writers are in charge of producing their own pieces. 
  • When there are too many things going on in a scene, he says, “You’re putting a hat on a hat.” (Another term for this is premise overload). 
  • When the details are accurate, your brain goes, “Somebody’s taken care of this.” 
  • “Do it in sunshine,” which means, don’t forget that comedy is an entertainment. Colors should be bright, costumes flattering.
  • Michaels dropped in and out, and at one session he made a plea: “Please don’t use cocaine. It doesn’t make you funnier. It only makes you think you’re funnier.”
  • It’s a 672 page paperback. I just made it to the 50% mark. 
  1. The 2026 Emmys! 
  • A fun freshman show, the Apple TV horror-comedy “Widow’s Bay,” nearly ran the table on the comedy side.
  • Matthew Rhys (Rees) is a beast after all. Rhys made history on Monday by becoming the first person to win two lead acting Emmys in one night. He took home prizes for the Netflix crime thriller mini-series “The Beast in Me” and the Apple TV horror-comedy hit “Widow’s Bay.”
  • But Parton also received her own dedicated tribute from Reba McEntire, another beloved country music superstar, who shared a decades-long friendship with Parton in which they sometimes sang and acted together. McEntire performed one of Parton’s songs, “Appalachian Memories,” a ballad about the region’s cultural heritage.
  • Click here for NY Times article. 

Anne’s Read or Watched This Week: 

  1. “Tom Cruise: Hollywood’s Most Elusive Star Speaks” by Zach Baron Interview in GQ
  • Tom Cruise Interview
  • Interesting how he answers questions – he kind of ignores it and answers it by saying he loves working with people and figuring out how to make the best movie.
  • Talks a lot about having personal goals and challenging
  • When asked if he fears death in regards to doing stunts like in MI films:   “But here’s the thing: How do we use these tools to create an emotional effect on an audience? And is it communicating what we want to communicate? So do I fear death? No. I don’t. It’s not like I’m not afraid. I don’t mind the feeling. I understand life has certainties and uncertainties. And in making movies and living life, what interests me is: Let’s move the uncertainties more into the certainties, but I want to create other uncertainties, so that we’re moving forward and it’s part of the adventure of it.” Are you ever afraid onscreen or off? TC: There’s stuff where you want to feel that. You want to feel that uncertainty. But I’m not afraid to feel afraid. I don’t know how else to say it. I’m not afraid to go, “Okay, I know this is a leap and let’s take the jump. Let’s go.” And I try to recognize things that I don’t know, and I don’t pretend to know things that I know and things that I don’t know. So that’s how I feel about it. Are you afraid of death? Are you afraid to be afraid?
  • A Cruise line that makes me think of Izzy: “I mean, these guys that are painting backgrounds and building the sets and moving the cameras, lighting, every area of making a movie—it’s light, architecture, the design, all of it, to entertain audiences,”
  1. The Death of Trotsky by Josh Ireland
  • The Death of Trotsky
  • Interesting, easy to read. Gives some nice insight to Trotsky/Stalin plus the guy (Ramon Mercader agent for NKVD) who ultimately killed Trotsky with an ice pick. Plus some Frida Kahlo and Diego Revera mentions.
  • How far will you go for your beliefs? Political or otherwise. Most of us think it is wrong to murder, but some people have such strong belief in the moral rightness they will do anything.
  • Good exchange illuminating Stalin that Kamenev related, the group is day drinking and talking with each other (all communist party leaders), answering the question “What is the finest thing in the world?”
    • Kamenev: “Books”
    • Radek: “A woman, your woman”
    • Rykov: “Cognac”
    • Stalin: “The greatest delight is to mark one’s enemy, prepare everything, avenge oneself thoroughly, and then go to sleep.”
  1. The Whisper Man on Netflix directed by James Ashcroft
  • Starring Robert De Niro
  • The Whisper Man
  • Avg movie, did creep me out
  • Never live in a big old house with creepy open windows and mail slots in the door

Izzy Podcast Agenda and Notes 

  1. Role model concert 
  • He did not play the Wedding which is very important 
  • He is just as amazing and beautiful in person 
  1. Watched the film Obsession finally
  • It was made so so well for the budget of 740,000 and on a 20 day schedule. Did not like the story line, thought writing got weird at the end. 
  1. Started watching Gilmore Girls for the 7th time because fall has begun. 
  • Talk about Rory’s boyfriend controversy 
  • I have no alone time at school but I create moments to watch now 

Honorable Mention

  • learned that the secret lives of Mormon wives are a big deal and people in Utah see them around with other men and gossip about it 

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The Decision to Bring Dad Home

The first time Dad left the Margate Rehabilitation Facility in West Jefferson, NC was to get his staples out at the orthopedic office. The plan was staff from Margate would get him to the office and mom and I would meet him there. Mom and I arrived at the office before dad. The waiting room was pretty large–it probably seated around forty people–and it was L-shaped so that when you went up to the window where people were being checked in, it was hard to see the whole room. I went to the window to talk to the receptionist about how patients usually arrived from skilled nursing facilities. The nurse said sometimes there were multiple drop offs for the bus driver to make at different locations and they could work Dad in even if he got there late.

I went back to sit with mom and a few minutes passed. I absentmindedly scanned the room and saw Dad sitting in a wheelchair near the door. His face was blank as he stared ahead. I’m sure he didn’t know where he was or what he was doing here, and I thought about Dad’s life. These days, he mostly lay in bed. It used to be he’d watch any basketball game that was on, and he’d watch a lot of cable news including Fox and CNN. He stopped watching sports first; he just couldn’t follow what was going on anymore. Dad had coached sports his whole working life–including basketball, baseball, and golf–but now sports on television didn’t hold his interest. For nearly ten years, watching the news had really riled him up, and I’d say hadn’t been very healthy for him. He worried about my sister living in LA. He worried about terrorists taking out the power grid. He worried the banks would be unable to function or that the grocery stores would cease to have food. Of course all of these things could happen, and it’s probably not a bad idea to prepare by degree for those contingencies, but Dad was in his eighties with advanced Parkinson’s, and I wished for him that he could have let all of that go. If I’m blessed enough to make it to eighty, we’ll see what I pay attention to.

I thought maybe one reason that Dad stopped watching sports and the news was that he couldn’t see very well. As a part of Parkinson’s, his eyes were really sensitive to light. One day at Margate, I turned on Dad’s television. “Wolf Blitzer,” Dad cried out, as if seeing an old friend. Dad’s life was mostly something that happened to him–as opposed to his making choices to make things happen. Dad lay in bed. Food arrived. People came to change his diaper. People came to give him a sponge bath or a haircut or to shave him. Two big dudes came to take him down the hall to, as he said about his therapy, rough him up. 

I walked over to Dad at the orthopedic office. “Well hello, Dad!” I said. 

“Bill!” Dad exclaimed with surprise. “Boy am I glad to see you.” I wondered if anyone told him why he was here, and if they had, if he had been able to understand them. I explained he was going to get his stitches out from his hip surgery. When it was Dad’s turn to go back to an examination room, Mom, Dad, and I all crammed into a little room with a nurse. Dad was taken away for an x-ray and eventually we were told that his hip looked good. The staple removal was tough for a couple of reasons. We had to get Dad’s pants down, and I had to hold him at a certain angle for the doctor–or maybe she was a physician’s assistant or a nurse practitioner–to clip the staples and pull them out. “It might feel like a bee sting,” she said as she worked her way through the staples. She had some trouble with several of them. Dad groaned as she took some of them out. 

Through no fault of the staff or conditions at the skilled nursing facility, I could see Dad give up while he was there. I tried to show Dad how to work the television remote and the buttons on the side of his bed, but he didn’t show any interest. Maybe he couldn’t comprehend any longer how those things worked, or maybe he just wanted to sit halfway up and stare at the wall in front of him. He had what seemed like daily hallucinations to me in which he’d think he was talking to one of his golf buddies or coaching a basketball game from decades before. His enthusiasm for my visits began to wane too. “Hey Bill,” he’d say when I’d walk into his room. Then, he’d just go back to staring ahead at the wall. Even though insurance would pay for dad to stay longer, I thought it might be time for him to come home. 

The main pro of having Dad at the facility was that mom was able to get a pretty good night’s sleep and the staff at the facility changed dad and kept him clean. It was summer, I wasn’t teaching a class, and the high school basketball team I coached wasn’t playing games. For now, I’d be able to be around the house most of the time. The cons of keeping him in the facility were that dad didn’t want to be there and the forty-five minute drive each way that mom had been doing most ways. She probably didn’t need to be driving that much, and it was a lot for me to get out there and it might be less to just have dad conveniently located in the same house as the rest of the family. I thought Dad’s life would be better–I don’t think I could go so far as to say happier–if he came back home to live with us. 

Could we just take Dad out of the facility whenever we wanted? It turned out the answer was mostly yes. I remember some light pushback related to the therapists thinking that in another week or two Dad might be able to stand with the assistance of only one, but when I called the woman I’d first talked to when considering the facility, the woman I knew had recently lost her own mom, she told me there’s no place like home. It was decided. We would bring dad home in two days, on Thursday, September 5, 2024. 

1988 Winamac High School Basketball team. Coach Mike Miller and Martin Torgerson
The 1988 Winamac, Indiana High School Basketball Team. That’s my dad Martin Torgerson on the far left (as usual not looking at the camera) and I’m #10

Stories We Read and Watched from the Week of Sept 7, 2026

Stories We Read and Watched for Week of Sept 7, 2026 Podcast Episode

3 Stories Bill Read or Watched

  1. Sing Street is a coming of age musical drama film directed by John Carney. Click here for the trailer. 
  • It’s about a boy who starts a band to impress a girl. 
  • Filmed in Dublin. Synge Street CBS is a real school and the kids name their band Sing as a pun on the school they go to. 
  • 95% on the Tomatometer and 92% on the Popcorn meter
  • It’s got honest dialogue that rings true of how teenagers behave and talk. Grittier than something glib such as Weird Science or “out there” as Ferris Bueller. 
  • It has a boy after the girl that I care about. Guy just tells girl he’s in a band and then sings “Take on Me” by a-ha 
  • Great scenes about how songs get written. 
  • Funny. What are you doing? Rabbit stuff. 
  • Heavy themes: parents divorce, abusive priests, bullying
  • Great music! “Rio” by Duran Duran, “In Between Days” by The Cure, “Maneater” by Hall & Oates, “I Fought the Law” by the Clash, “Paperlate” Genesis, “Take on Me” by a-ha, 
  • Original music!
  • All these good actors who I’d never seen before: Lucy Boynton (NYC with Rami Malek), Ferdia Walsh-Peelo (Ireland age 26 now) 
  • Budget $4 million and box office $13.6 million. 
  • You can stream it on HBO Max if you’re a subscriber and cheap rental on Amazon.
  1. “The Los Angeles Rams Are Trying to Defeat Time: Welcome to the Super Bowl of jet lag” by Hana Kiros. 
  • From the article: The two teams have taken diametrically opposite approaches to preventing the 8,000-mile journey from disorienting their stars. The 49ers boarded their 16-hour flight to Melbourne nine days ago and have spent the intervening time training, watching Aussie rules football, and winning the majority of local support. The Rams landed yesterday, just 24 hours before the game. They’re betting on being in Australia so briefly that players’ brains and bodies won’t notice the difference. That makes the game the most high-profile test of jet-lag-evasion techniques in American sports history.
  • From the article: Teams at a circadian disadvantage tend to play worse. One study that analyzed every NFL game from 1970 to 2011 with a kickoff after 8 p.m. ET found that West Coast teams did better than oddsmakers expected in two out of every three games, regardless of whether they were home or away. Head coaches are also more likely to make the risky call to attempt an offensive play on a fourth down during evening games when they travel west compared with any other direction.
  • From the article: Many NFL teams now have a sleep specialist and a performance-science team working on circumventing jet lag. To prep players for time shifts before they depart, 14 NFL teams, including the 49ers, have installed in their training facilities lighting systems designed to mold circadian rhythms. The system, called BrainLit, mimics daylight according to a “recipe” that each team specifies, Kyle Harris, the CEO of the company, told me.
  • 49ers won the game 27-7. 
  • Anne, you fly some red eyes to come see us and then you stay up. 
  • What are some of the times you stayed awake the longest? Maui arriving the day of the fires. That was long flights + can’t go to the hotel. (2) Thirty-six hours coming home from the hurricane. 
  • Click here to link to the article on The Atlantic. 
  1. Ted Lasso S4. E6 – “Don’t Jump Around Much Anymore.” 
  • The title comes from House of Pain’s song “Jump Around.” Jamie was back for this episode and very funny. He launched a vodka brand. Roy came to support, and he blew out his knee. 
  • The show seemed to put a wrap on Ted and his wife not being together. 
  • Coach Chilton seems to be growing and I’m enjoying that but she and Gemma’s characters are so inconsistent. 
  • Thought Roy had a great doctor girlfriend. Keeley heard Roy tell her he loved her but she missed that he thought she was talking to Keeley. 
  • New Year’s Eve and winter was a stretch during an eighty degree week in September. 
  • Pros: just glad to hang with the group again, still moves me emotionally, Jaimie very funny, love Beard, Jane’s one man show funny, real moment with Ted and his wife
  • Cons: underdeveloped players and women’s team, Tracy Ullman character just inexplicable why any of them would be around her, inconsistent Chilton character, yanking us around too much with Roy and Keely 
  • The season is 10 episodes so we’re down to four to go. 

3 Stories Anne Read or Watched

  1. From Curbed “When Offices Don’t Want Their Furniture, She Brings It to Public-Housing Residents” By Anne Kadet
  • Regina Carter organically created a charity thru her experiences being in foster care and then working at local tenant association – she got an email from an org saying they had 15 racks of clothing – she arranged to distribute and then reached out to a company that disposes of used office furniture / supplies.
  • Offices dump tons of furniture, I have seen friends mention monitor giveaways a lot, chairs, etc. All that is waste but is perfectly good to be used.
  • Before you throw something away, I will try to think if it can be re-used by someone else or repurposed.
  • The Woman Who Brings Discarded Office Furniture to NYCHA 
  1. From the Intelligencer (New York Mag) “New From Apple: Extremely Pricey iPhones and a Watch That Eavesdrops” by John Herrman
  • Annual Sept Apple announcements include a watch that eavesdrops. What do we think about this: “Audio Intelligence” uses mic to “Make sense of things you hear”. “Live Rewind recalls what was just said in the last 15 seconds by showing a text snippet on your Apple Watch when you double-press the Digital Crown, so you can catch something you missed or are less familiar with,” the company says. Beyond that, the Apple Watch now offers an always-on meeting notes feature: Siri Recap ambiently takes notes on your conversations throughout your day and creates high-level Apple Intelligence–generated summaries that you can use later to jog your memory, so you can stay present in the moment.
  • Our company uses MS Teams which auto transcribes calls.
  • Also foldable iphone – $2,000. Samsung has had one since 2019.
  • Memory shortages driven by AI are driven up prices.
  • New at Apple: Pricey iPhones and a Watch That Eavesdrops 
  1. Hulu Series: “Welcome to the Family: The Murder of Dan Markel” 
  • A Florida attorney/law professor Dan Markel murdered in his driveway
  • 4 Episodes, watched all on a rainy Sunday
  • Divorced, his wife wants to move to Miami with children and he doesn’t want it. What will her controlling family do?
  • The ex-wife’s Mom and one of her brothers – they order the hit, now the two hired hitmen are in jail, the baby momma of one of the hitmen who brokered the deal is in jail, the brother is in jail and the mother is in jail. All their kids/families missing their parents etc, how many lives were altered forever?
  • Welcome to the Family: The Murder of Dan Markel  

Honorable Mention Stories: 

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10 Books We Want to Read

Click to listen to 10 books to read podcsast

We’d love to hear from you! 

  • Tell us about books you want to read
  • Do you think you might take us up on any of our recommendations below?

5 Books Bill Wants to Read 

  1. The Reverse Centaur’s Guide to Life After AI: How to Think About Artificial Intelligence–Before It’s Too Late by Cory Doctorow
  • Heard about this book when Cory was a guest on the Jon Stewart Podcast 
  • How people knew the freelance writer used GenAI: We know this is true for two reasons. First, because ten of the fifteen books on the list were nonexistent. They were AI “hallucinations” (a term that AI boosters use because it sounds sexier than “errors”). Second, because Buscaglia confessed to using a chatbot, in an interview with the veteran tech reporter Jason Koebler, who cofounded the journalist-owned news site 404 Media.
  • Click here for the Amazon affiliate link. 
  1. Cinema Speculation by Quentin Tarantino 
  • I like this because of where you live and my memory of walking this area a couple of times: The Sunset Strip was famous for its rock clubs (the Whisky a Go Go, the London Fog, Pandora’s Box).* And right there among the rock clubs and across the street from Ben Frank’s Coffee Shop sat the Tiffany Theater. The Tiffany didn’t show films like Oliver!, Airport, Goodbye, Mr. Chips, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, The Love Bug, or even Thunderball. The Tiffany was the home of Woodstock, Gimme Shelter, Yellow Submarine, Alice’s Restaurant, Andy Warhol’s Trash, Andy Warhol’s Frankenstein, and Robert Downey’s Pound.
  • Causes me to check out a trailer from a movie such as Bullitt starring Steve McQueen: Bullitt is about action, atmosphere, San Francisco, Yates’ great location photography, Lalo Schifrin’s jazzy score, and Steve McQueen, his haircut and wardrobe. Nothing else matters.
  • Click here for Bullitt trailer. 
  • Click here  for Amazon affiliate link. 
  1. A Violent Masterpiece by Jordan Harper (novel) 
  • More LA Anne! This is the narrator talking to his audience as he drives and livestreams his driving: He tells them, “LA is a Frankenstein’s monster—all these felonies sewn together into something like a city. Stolen land gulping stolen water. Streets paved with corpses. We even went and massacred the sky: smog strangles the air; light pollution buries the stars.” He tilts the dashcam to show the starless night. A plane coming in for a landing at LAX swoops down low and huge—you could reach up and touch it. It slices through the shot like he planned it. Gooseflesh blooms; clap emojis scroll up the comment bar on the laptop riding shotgun. 
  • I’ve watched Jake Gyllenhaal in Nightcrawler twice. The novel references that here: They used to call it nightcrawling, like in that movie—driving LA at high speed, looking for footage, looking for blood on the streets, broken glass, car fires, and corpses. Back then you’d sell the footage to the local TV news departments for Los Angeles to wake up to—murder and mayhem as part of a healthy breakfast. It used to be a living, back before everybody in the world had a phone with a camera. Nowadays footage is cheap; nowadays tragedy is a buyer’s market.
  • Click here for the Amazon affiliate link. 
  1. Dusk, Night, Dawn: On Revival and Courage by Anne Lamott 
  • The opening of the book: Here we are, older, scared, numb on some days, enraged on others, with even less trust than we had a year ago. The devastating pandemic, and the federal government’s confused and deadly response, was simply the final straw to a few years of crushing developments. A UN report on climate catastrophe was published months before my wedding in 2019, the report of the extinction of one million species three weeks after. Major buzzkill.
  • I’ve just barely started watching and not only listening to podcasts. Heard her on Amy Poehler’s Good Hang podcast. Liked it so much showed it to Megan. Megan liked it so much she wanted to start buying her books. 
  • Click here for Amazon affiliate link. 
  1. Between You and Me: Confessions of a Comma Queen by Mary Norris 
  • From Cleveland to Vermont to grad school. Thought about marrying a cattle guy but instead this: I made up my mind to move to New York in the fall of 1977. I drove there in my 1965 Plymouth Fury II, with my cat, my books pared down to the bare essentials, and two hundred dollars.
  • Anne, makes me wonder about the day and week after you left for LA. 
  • Click here for the Amazon affiliate link. 

Anne’s 5 Books She Wants to Read

  1. Eternity Street by John Mack Faragher
  • This is about 19th century Los Angeles
  • Heard it recommended by this TikTok creator who talks about history of LA landmarks.
  • Murder and mayhem! Also interested about the history of LA
  • I have this on hold in the LA library.
  • Click here for the Amazon affiliate link. 
  1. My Sister, the Serial Killer by Oyinkan Braithwaite
  • Fiction. Saw this book on some recommendation list, currently have it on hold at the LA library
  • The summary: The narrator is a hospital nurse in Nigeria and her younger sister has a habit of killing her boyfriends and claiming self-defence.
  • I like a thriller and I think Nigeria is a new setting for me and I am interested to read about how that looks.
  • It is also supposed to have good dark humor
  • Click here for the Amazon affiliate link. 
  1. King of Kings: The Iranian Revolution, A Story of Hubris, Delusion and Catastrophic Miscalculation by Scott Anderson
  • This seems like it can help my understanding of how modern day Iran was founded.
  • I have a very limited view of the revolution and am interested in the events that led to it, how the US was involved in the regime that was overthrown
  • Click here for the Amazon affiliate link. 
  1. 38 Londres Street by Phillipe Sands
  • Traces the intertwined stories of Nazi commander Walter Rauff and Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet
  • I know little of this, never even heard of Rauff, I am interested Nazi-South America links.
  • Click here for the Amazon affiliate link. 
  1. The Secret History of Gold by Dominic Frisby
  • I saw this when googling best history books of 2026, and it is something I never considered.
  • Why gold? Where does gold come from? When did humans attach value to it?
  • How has it shaped our financial markets?
  • Click here for the Amazon affiliate link. 

Honorable Mentions: The Women of Troy & The Voyage Home by Pat Barker, this is continuing the series of the book I read earlier this summer – a women’s point of view in classical history. The Death of Trotsky by Josh Ireland. The Blood in Winter by Jonathan Healey (Charles 1 – English Civil war), The Rule of Lies by Jamison R. Firestone (Putin)

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