"As social commentary his books are witty, vivid and accessible, providing the kind of nuggets that do well at dinner parties so long as nobody there is remotely impacted by the topic at hand." Gary Younge on the Malcolm Gladwell approach to gun violence: www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...

The American Way of Killing by Malcolm Gladwell review – wide of the mark

Gladwell’s highly readable investigation into US gun culture fails to engage with the bigger questions

theguardian.com

Writing about AI is the first time I've gotten slammed online for being... *checks notes* ... "human." www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...

Amused by the extremely correctly categorised bad books on this list

Lois Beckett@loisbeckett.bsky.social · last wk.

An AI book list with three categories: 1) smart books that explain and critique the AI industry 2) VERY flawed but ~illustrative~ books on AI 3) books that provide deeper political/social context, including some fiction (lmk what you'd add to the list) www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...

A couple welcome but unexpected selections. @zacharymason.bsky.social #borges www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...

Feeling overwhelmed by the AI doom loop? Here’s the essential reading list to make sense of it all

It’s a chaotic time in an industry that’s reshaping our lives – Guardian reporters and experts recommend the books that help explain how we got here, and where we’re headed

theguardian.com

An AI book list with three categories: 1) smart books that explain and critique the AI industry 2) VERY flawed but ~illustrative~ books on AI 3) books that provide deeper political/social context, including some fiction (lmk what you'd add to the list) www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...

An AI book list with three categories: 1) smart books that explain and critique the AI industry 2) VERY flawed but ~illustrative~ books on AI 3) books that provide deeper political/social context, including some fiction (lmk what you'd add to the list) www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...

Feeling trapped in an endless cycle of artificial intelligence hype and panic? Me too. Here's a list of key AI books from @theguardian.com's tech reporters, to help cut through the noise: www.theguardian.com/books/2026/s...

"Once a dadaist experiment, an attempt to create a 'temporary autonomous-zone' in the desert, Burning Man is now a marker of class status for tech bros and 'creative professionals' around the globe, a kind of west coast Wimbledon for the weird." www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...

Burning Man at 40: the once anarchic desert festival faces a midlife crisis

The subversive bacchanal for San Francisco’s eccentric underground is ageing out amid an influx of the super-rich

theguardian.com

"To be fair, to the art punks who built it in the first place, Burning Man hasn’t been cool for decades. You could argue that Burning Man has been over since 2001, when Eric Schmidt was famously selected as Google’s new CEO after a vetting trip to Burning Man." www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...

Burning Man at 40: the once anarchic desert festival faces a midlife crisis

The subversive bacchanal for San Francisco’s eccentric underground is ageing out amid an influx of the super-rich

theguardian.com

"Once a dadaist experiment, an attempt to create a 'temporary autonomous-zone' in the desert, Burning Man is now a marker of class status for tech bros and 'creative professionals' around the globe, a kind of west coast Wimbledon for the weird." www.theguardian.com/culture/2026...

Burning Man at 40: the once anarchic desert festival faces a midlife crisis

The subversive bacchanal for San Francisco’s eccentric underground is ageing out amid an influx of the super-rich

theguardian.com

On a hot afternoon in August, I walked out of a natural history museum carrying a whale rib, a leopard pelt, a taxidermied weasel & a piece of fossilized dinosaur poop. It felt like a heist. These were real museum specimens. But for two weeks, they were mine: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

All isn't lost - you can get your lepidopterist jones on down in San Diego. Road trip! #Butterflies #Entomology

Lois Beckett@loisbeckett.bsky.social · 3w ago

At San Diego's Natural History Museum, I saw a small sign suggesting they had a ....scientific specimen lending library?? For the general public? This couldn't be real. But it's so real. Aisles of taxidermy, bones, and fossils--and you can take them home. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

"Sometimes, people show up at the library, or even the front desk of the museum, with dead animals they think might be of use, forcing employees to politely tell them that the museum does not accept carcasses without prior arrangement."

Anna Merlan @annamerlan.bsky.social · 3w ago

This is the most incredible news for me personally www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

This is the most incredible news for me personally www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

Want to borrow a dinosaur fossil? Try California’s one-of-a-kind taxidermy lending library

A natural history museum lets residents take home 1,400 specimens, from bobcats and beetles to snakes in jars

theguardian.com

there is truly nothing that comes close to a Lois Beckett story

Lois Beckett@loisbeckett.bsky.social · 3w ago

At San Diego's Natural History Museum, I saw a small sign suggesting they had a ....scientific specimen lending library?? For the general public? This couldn't be real. But it's so real. Aisles of taxidermy, bones, and fossils--and you can take them home. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

This is a delightful piece from @loisbeckett.bsky.social: the San Diego Natural History Museum has a lending library of specimens!! 1) if I lived there, I’d be borrowing things constantly; 2) what would it look like for a rare books & mss library to have a lending collection?? 📜 📚

Want to borrow a dinosaur fossil? Try California’s one-of-a-kind taxidermy lending library

A natural history museum lets residents take home 1,400 specimens, from bobcats and beetles to snakes in jars

theguardian.com

At San Diego's Natural History Museum, I saw a small sign suggesting they had a ....scientific specimen lending library?? For the general public? This couldn't be real. But it's so real. Aisles of taxidermy, bones, and fossils--and you can take them home. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026...

covering trans youth healthcare for years, I’ve known many trans youth and families who left states like Texas to preserve their child’s healthcare. some of those families have been left scrambling, shocked to see the admin’s anti-trans efforts reach them in Mass with its 14,000 trans residents.

Even in safe-haven Massachusetts, trans care is at risk. Young people are fighting to protect it

Activists are calling on the state attorney general to take action against hospitals that have ended gender-affirming care programs after Trump retook office

theguardian.com

Tupac trial spotlights decades of US police failures in solving the case

Tupac trial spotlights decades of US police failures in solving the case

Police received information nearly immediately after the killing. It took Las Vegas police 27 years to make an arrest

theguardian.com

www.theguardian.com/film/2026/au...

Mel Brooks’ 20 favorite films to be screened in LA for 100th birthday

Comedian and director’s picks for American Cinematheque series range from Charlie Chaplin’s City Lights to Taika Waititi’s Jojo Rabbit

theguardian.com

One-year reporting gig with @theguardian.com's stellar West Coast team: Amazing editors, great colleagues, salary range $72,000 - $85,000 workwithus.theguardian.com/job-search/e...

One-year reporting gig with @theguardian.com's stellar West Coast team: workwithus.theguardian.com/job-search/e...

Charlottesville finally took down its Confederate monuments in 2021. The statue of Robert E. Lee was melted down. The statue of Stonewall Jackson was given to artist Kara Walker. This is what she did with it: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

Breathtaking, unsettling, healing: a new exhibit by Black US artists transforms Confederate monuments

The sweeping exhibition Monuments opens in Los Angeles on 23 October and is on view through May

theguardian.com

Still thinking about "Unmanned Drone" by Kara Walker, made out of a decommissioned statue of Stonewall Jackson. Going to be thinking about it for years. My god.

Breathtaking, unsettling, healing: how US artist Kara Walker transformed a Confederate monument

The sweeping exhibition Monuments, which features 19 contemporary artists, opens in LA on 23 October

theguardian.com

The first look at the scale of Disney backlash after it suspended Kimmel. Wow>> “Antenna estimated a total of 3 million cancellations for Disney+ and 4.1 million for Hulu in September. Both of those figures far exceeded the trailing three-month averages for the services” www.wsj.com/business/med...

Kahlil Robert Irving's meticulous bronze replica of the streets of Ferguson. A beclowned statute of a Confederal naval commander, Matthew Fontaine Maury: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

MONUMENTS, an exhibit featuring decommissioned Confederate monuments paired with work by contemporary Black artists, opens in Los Angeles next week. This is Karon Davis' Descendants (2025), showing her son, Moses, holding a squirming replica Confederate general www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

In 2021, a violently contested statue of Robert E. Lee was finally taken down from its pedestal in Charlottesville. In 2023, it was melted down into bronze ingots. Its remnants are now are on display in Los Angeles, in a new exhibit called MONUMENTS: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

The one of Jeff Davis is exhibited exactly as it lay after being toppled by Richmonders in the summer of 2020, paint and all. Personally, it’s one of the most impactful exhibits at the Valentine and I’m glad more people get to experience it.

Lois Beckett@loisbeckett.bsky.social · 11mo ago

A toppled statue of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, which once stood in Richmond, Virginia, and a full-sized Dodge Charger painted like the car from The Dukes of Hazzard. From the new MONUMENTS exhibit in LA: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...