What we’re reading: China Miéville, Sebastian Barry, Derek Owusu and Guardian readers on the books they enjoyed in September
Writers and Guardian readers discuss the titles they have read over the last month. Join the conversation in the commentsI was sideswiped by Giada Scodellaro’s Ruins, Child. A brilliant, strange book that challenged me in the most exhilarating way, with…
The best dishes to come out of a roasting tin
Baked pasta, gnocchi, chicken, meatballs and greens – all perfectly served straight from the oven• Sign up here for our weekly food newsletter, FeastAs I have mentioned before, we live directly above a takeaway pizzeria and tavola calda (a canteen-like…
Balraj Khanna: Lines of Flight review – plenty of dazzle, but where is the darkness?
Ikon, BirminghamThis six-decade survey is a riot of biomorphic blobs, candy-coloured galaxies and cosmic spectacle – but the quieter works pack the biggest punchThe work of Balraj Khanna will be familiar to many residents of Birmingham, whether they know…
Releasing prisoners won’t solve the crisis in English and Welsh jails. Here’s what will | Enver Solomon
Ministers need to level with the public about what current prison sentences look like – who needs to be locked up and for how longEnver Solomon is chief executive of Nacro, the criminal justice charity‘Thank you Andy Burnham’: prisoners react as they…
Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? review – Gillian Anderson fights tooth and nail in marital meltdown
@sohoplace, LondonThere is no shortage of sparring between Anderson and Billy Crudup in Edward Albee’s classic, though its comedy has an air of George and MildredThose who want to moan about the toxic reliance on celebrity casting and screen stars in the…
Inside the undersea kingdom: the secret, sinister battle to control what lies beneath the waves
Every day, trillions of dollars, oil and gas and 99% of the world’s web traffic move through undersea pipelines that bear no state’s protection. With superpowers and corporations vying for control, should we be worried about this new wild west?On…
I went to America’s largest gathering of astrologers. It was a battle over how to read the stars
Now a $15bn industry, astrology is more mainstream in the US than ever. But its practitioners are still debating: who gets to have authority on the celestial bodies?“The dwarf planets change everything,” said the woman with the smart haircut as she made…
Heart-meltingly good: the best cooking chocolate to buy
Those cookies and cakes will only be as tasty as the chocolate you use in their baking. Here are my favouritesOf course, you can bake with any sort of chocolate, and I do, but being Chocolate Correspondent means I have a lot of it spare, despite giving…
Tech in cars can be used to snoop on you, Dutch spy chiefs warn
Hostile states could access cameras, microphones or GPS, says intelligence agency amid concerns over Chinese importsDrivers have been warned that the smart features built into modern cars such as microphones, cameras and GPS trackers could be used by…
Don’t hate the movie, hate the critic! Digger’s new PR push is a risky bet for film that was never meant to be divisive
‘SAME FILM – DIFFERENT TRUTH’ is the marketing solution for the film’s poor reception by critics. Or, as Cruise says in the ad, ‘Fuck those people!’ ‘You know what? Fuck those people!” The speaker is Tom Cruise in his serious-fatsuit role of Digger, in…