Weekend Watch & Read
What’s worth watching, what’s worth reading, and what deserves a place on your bookshelf?
Every Friday, I’ll bring you the Top 10 Netflix shows in the United States and Brazil, the New York Times Best Seller lists for Fiction and Nonfiction, and one book from my own bookshelf, along with my honest review.
The lists may surprise you, the books may challenge you, and my opinions are entirely my own. So grab a coffee, settle in, and let’s see what the world is watching, what readers are buying, and what one retired American living in Brazil thinks is worth your time.
Your weekend starts here.
I watched Little House on the Prairie, and it was pretty good. It’s also coming back for a second season. What surprised me most was how different the beginning was from what I remembered of the original TV series as a kid. The Netflix series starts in Kansas, whereas the original television series was set in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Netflix went back to the beginning of Laura Ingalls Wilder’s original books, rather than simply retelling the old television series.
Netflix: Weekly Top 10 TV Shows
Reporting period: October 26–November 1, 2026
United States
| Rank | TV Show |
|---|---|
| 1 | The One About Matthew Perry: Season 1 |
| 2 | Nobody Wants This: Season 3 |
| 3 | The Fall of El Mayo: Limited Series |
| 4 | From: Season 1 |
| 5 | Love Is Blind: Season 11: Boston |
| 6 | From: Season 2 |
| 7 | Minimum Wage: Season 1 |
| 8 | Raw: 2026 |
| 9 | Instadocs: Jane Doe v. Cornell |
| 10 | From: Season 3 |
Brazil
| Rank | TV Show |
|---|---|
| 1 | Lupin: Part 4 |
| 2 | The Gift of Deceit: Season 1 |
| 3 | Lupin: Part 1 |
| 4 | Lupin: Part 2 |
| 5 | Lupin: Part 3 |
| 6 | Dead-End Job: Limited Series |
| 7 | Where the Mask Ends: Season 1 |
| 8 | Doctor X: Mafia in White: Limited Series |
| 9 | The One About Matthew Perry: Season 1 |
| 10 | Below: Limited Series |
New York Times: Weekly Best Sellers
Reference date: October 26, 2026
The most recent identified NYT edition is dated October 25, 2026.
Hardcover Fiction
| Rank | Book | Author |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Witch | Freida McFadden |
| 2 | Threshing Day | Rebecca Yarros |
| 3 | Other Worlds Than These | Stephen King and Peter Straub |
| 4 | Partita | Barbara Kingsolver |
| 5 | The French Illusion | John Grisham |
| 6 | The Calamity Club | Kathryn Stockett |
| 7 | Hollywood, Ending | John Green |
| 8 | Hollow Bones | Jodi Picoult |
| 9 | Return to the Shack | Wm. Paul Young |
| 10 | American Hagwon | Min Jin Lee |
Hardcover Nonfiction
| Rank | Book | Author |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | One Helluva Ride | Michael Douglas, Shane Salerno and Michael Fleming Jr. |
| 2 | Blockers | Michael Lewis |
| 3 | The Steps | Sylvester Stallone |
| 4 | Devil on My Shoulder | Alice Cooper with Daniel Richler |
| 5 | Swan Song | Charles Spencer |
| 6 | The American Way of Killing | Malcolm Gladwell |
| 7 | The Rush | Nathaniel Philbrick |
| 8 | So Ordered | Samuel A. Alito Jr. |
| 9 | Not Today, Fascists | Jennifer Welch |
| 10 | Sleeping Beauties | David Byrne |
Book Review
Travels with Charley Review: John Steinbeck’s Journey Across America
By John Steinbeck Rating: ★★★
Opening
John Steinbeck set out to rediscover America, but did his journey deliver the insight and understanding he was looking for? My review of Travels with Charley looks at what worked, what didn’t, and why I expected more.
John Steinbeck was 58 years old when he decided to travel across America. As an aging writer, he felt he had lost touch with the country and its people and needed to see America for himself. He hoped the journey would help him better understand the country he had spent his career writing about and make him a better writer.
Book Overview
John Steinbeck had a custom camper built on a pickup truck that he used to travel the country, recording what he saw and the people he met. The journey lasted about three months and covered roughly 10,000 miles. He traveled from Long Island through Maine and across the northern United States to California, then down the West Coast and across the Southwest and South before returning home.
What Worked
I like the concept and the places he described. On the surface, the adventure seemed great and fun. In fact, as he traveled through Maine and New Hampshire, I recognized some of the places he visited because I had been to them myself.
It was also interesting to read his descriptions of people in different parts of the country and how different they could be. Some seemed very conservative and reluctant to engage in open conversation, while others he encountered in the Midwest seemed more engaging.
I also enjoyed his observations about how states differed in their laws, appearances, and the things he liked or disliked about them. He described the turbulent South of the early 1960s, including the racial tensions and resistance to school integration that were taking place at the time.
Strong Ideas
The idea of traveling across the country to see how we are alike as Americans and how we differ by region was interesting. You can also begin to see the growing influence of television and mass media, and how they were changing the way people interacted and viewed the world compared with earlier generations.
Strong Characters
There weren’t really any strong characters because his encounters with people were generally brief. Much of the journey seemed like a solitary, somewhat lonely tour, with only his dog, Charley, as a companion. The people he met were more brief encounters than developed characters, and I would have liked to learn more about them.
Strong Writing
I thought Steinbeck sometimes got a bit too deep into his descriptions, using imagery that, at least to me, became overly elaborate. Perhaps this was a result of his attempt to capture what he saw and convey a particular feeling or atmosphere. At times, though, I felt the writing became too convoluted and obscured the point he was trying to make.
What Didn’t Work
I did not really care for much of the book, which often seemed to consist of descriptions of what he saw along the way. I expected a bit more about the regions he visited and the people he met. These encounters seemed too brief, and I wanted more substance and insight into the people themselves.
Modern Relevance
This is the kind of journey that could still be done today, and I am sure it would reveal similar differences between states and regions. However, I suspect the observations might also reveal a more jaded and detached society, given how much our ability to communicate and share information has changed.
What Steinbeck witnessed was only the beginning of the influence of mass media. Television was already changing the country, and his journey took place during the 1960 presidential campaign between Richard Nixon and John F. Kennedy. It would be interesting to compare his observations with what someone traveling across America today would find.
Final Verdict
I thought it was okay, but it was not really what I was expecting. At times, it seemed more like I was reading his notebook than a story crafted for the reader. I liked the idea behind the journey and some of his observations, but I wanted more depth and a better understanding of the people and places he encountered.
A Note on the Critics
My reaction is not entirely out of step with the critical response to Travels with Charley. When it was published in 1962, some reviewers praised Steinbeck’s observations and descriptions of America, while others found the book self-conscious and less substantial than his best work. Later, questions were also raised about how faithfully the book represented his actual journey, with researchers pointing to altered events, embellished scenes, and conversations that may have been invented.
That last point is particularly interesting. Steinbeck was a novelist, and his instinct was to tell a story. Whether that made the book more engaging or less convincing as a work of nonfiction depends on what the reader expects from it. For me, the problem was less about whether every encounter happened exactly as described and more about wanting a deeper exploration of the people and places he wrote about.
And that’s a wrap for this week’s Weekend Watch & Read.
Whether you decide to binge a new series, catch up on a movie, or settle into a good book, hopefully I’ve given you a few ideas for the weekend.
I’ll be back next Friday with another look at what’s trending on Netflix in the US and Brazil, the latest bestseller lists, and a few reading recommendations.
Until then, find something good to watch, something worth reading, and most importantly, enjoy your weekend.
See you next Friday!
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