How to live nowBooksFor many people, reading has been difficult this last year - but a breakthrough is always possible. Guardian readers describe the books that drew them in
Hot Water Music by Charles Bukowski‘Reading about the hope in others’ hopeless lives kept me going’
Bukowski’s often seedy stories are a wonderful break from normality. I don’t know how I’d have got through lockdown without them. Being sheltered this past year for medical reasons was one of the loneliest times of my life.
Magnetic spectacle… Olivia Williams and Olivia Colman. All photographs: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian.Magnetic spectacle… Olivia Williams and Olivia Colman. All photographs: Tristram Kenton for the Guardian.StageReviewDorfman, London
Olivias Williams and Colman give a spellbinding account of sibling strife in this wonderfully ambitious play set during the Higgs boson breakthrough
Lucy Kirkwood has proved, with Chimerica and The Children, that she is a dramatist of dauntless ambition. She pushes the boat out even further with her new play, which uses experiments in particle physics as a way of exploring the collision between two wildly contrasted sisters.
US politicsInterview‘People are sick and tired’: the man challenging far-right extremist Lauren BoebertMartin PengellyAfter Boebert’s Beetlejuice embarrassment, Adam Frisch hopes he can wrestle the Colorado congresswoman’s seat from her
Adam Frisch is in his second congressional campaign, crossing and re-crossing Colorado’s third US House district, a space bigger than Pennsylvania. Thirteen months out from election day, time is one thing he does not lack. But Frisch has a unique way of counting it anyway: before and after Beetlejuice.
Science This article is more than 16 years oldPsychologist explains secret of children's word explosionThis article is more than 16 years oldOut of the mouths of babes spurts a rush of words, at least once they reach their second year. Now mathematics may finally explain why.
A sudden explosion in a child's vocabulary usually strikes at around 18 months, with usage expanding dramatically to include more complex words, but scientists have previously failed to provide a convincing explanation.
The ObserverDiane MorganInterview‘We always need stuff that cheers us up’: Diane Morgan on love, laughs and learning to let goMichael SegalovWith her laconic delivery, Diane Morgan has brought a host of comedy characters to life, most notably Philomena Cunk. But with her latest, Mandy, she wanted to create someone who was just plain silly
In August 2020, only days before the pilot episode of Mandy was set to be broadcast, Diane Morgan picked up her phone and prepared to call a bigwig at the BBC.
A man takes his banana crop to market near the Kampala–Mbarara road, Uganda. Photograph: Tim WoodsA man takes his banana crop to market near the Kampala–Mbarara road, Uganda. Photograph: Tim WoodsFood security This article is more than 7 years oldBananas facing a bleak future as staple African crops declineThis article is more than 7 years oldBananas, maize and beans could be among crops consigned to history in parts of sub-Saharan Africa, with drastic consequences for people who rely on beans as a vital source of protein
Book of the dayScience and nature booksReviewOur world and the self are constructions of the brain, a pioneering neuroscientist argues For every stoner who has been overcome with profound insight and drawled, “Reality is a construct, maaan,” here is the astonishing affirmation. Reality – or, at least, our perception of it – is a “controlled hallucination”, according to the neuroscientist Anil Seth. Everything we see, hear and perceive around us, our whole beautiful world, is a big lie created by our deceptive brains, like a forever version of The Truman Show, to placate us into living our lives.
World newsBook tells how John Wayne survived Soviet assassinationJoseph Stalin ordered the KGB to assassinate John Wayne because he considered his anti-communist rhetoric a threat to the Soviet Union, according to a new biography of the film star based on interviews with Wayne's close associates and the movie legend Orson Welles.
Stalin apparently learned of Wayne's popularity from the Russian filmmaker Sergei Gerasimov, who attended a peace conference in New York in 1949.
East London 2012HackneyFive years ago, it was one of London's roughest areas. Then the middle classes moved in; galleries, cafes and a Sunday market followed – and prices shot up. But not everyone's happyIt's late morning on a Sunday and Venetia's Coffee Shop on Chatsworth Road, London E5, is teeming with the elevenses crowd. Mums sip on flat whites, nibbling courgette cake and chatting as their kids fight over an abacus, splattering "
Jay Rayner on restaurantsFoodReviewRed king crabs are seafood royalty. How can this place dedicated to consuming them get it all so horribly wrong?
92 Wigmore Street, London W1U 3RD (020 3096 9484). Meal for two, including drinks and service: £150
Eating crab, like building kitchen extensions and sex, is very messy when done properly. You have to roll up your sleeves and abandon yourself to the mucky business at hand, with hammer, crackers and pick.