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Composite: Eric Asato/Guardian Design Team
Composite: Eric Asato/Guardian Design Team

The antidote: your favourite reads beyond coronavirus

This article is more than 3 years old

If you’re feeling overwhelmed by coverage of the pandemic, try this list of non-coronavirus articles that our readers spent the most time with on Monday

1

‘I was face-to-face with Tony Blair’: Michael Sheen on Murdoch, class and giving away his money

‘“Five hundred of the most vulnerable people from all over the world were on their way to Cardiff, for a tournament that was potentially transformative and life-changing. And so,” he says, as if it were the easiest decision in the world, “I gave all my money to it.” He will be paying it off for years, he adds, cheerfully, which explains why he’s working in the US again.’

2

How we met: ‘I took an instant dislike to him’

‘To prepare for a corporate takeover, they were put in the same classroom for a two-week training session. “I took an instant dislike to him,” says Christine. “He was a sales manager and I think he was trying to get his staff excited, but I thought he was an idiot.” While her first impressions were bad, his were non-existent. “I don’t remember her being there at all,” he admits.’

3

Westworld recap: season 3, episode 4 – five of a kind

‘This week’s episode, while a bit glitchy when showing us around William’s mind, was as straightforward as Westworld has been for a while – and that is a good thing. We now know the parameters of the conflict. At stake: the future of humanity and a question over whether anyone can ever be free.’

4

The Life and Times of Malcolm McLaren by Paul Gorman review - punk’s king of chaos

‘Writing about Malcolm McLaren in 1978, his friend from art school described him as having “the vision of an artist, the heart of an anarchist and the imagination of a spiv”. It is still the most trenchant summation of a figure who, four decades on from the great punk disruption that he helped precipitate, remains oddly elusive. Paul Gorman’s exhaustive biography goes some way to explaining why this is the case.’

5

The Guardian view on Keir Starmer: a serious politician

“Sir Keir has unified the party by retaining a tax-and-spend agenda. He also represents a break with the past. There is no resonant phrase, or signature policy, that one can decode to understand the incipient Starmer project. This makes it hard to define what Sir Keir stands for politically. But it is clear what he is not: a populist.”

6. Country diary: winning the trust of a friendly robin

“It landed with the lightest of pressure. With eyes closed, one might have mistaken the weight for the touch of falling raindrops.”

7. Duffy reveals rape ordeal to ‘help others who have suffered the same’

Welsh pop star said she was drugged on her birthday at a restaurant and taken to a foreign country.

8. How The Jerry Springer Show splashed around in humanity’s worst excesses

Even Springer repeatedly distanced himself from his own creation. But the nail in the coffin came when Jeremy Kyle got involved.

9. My favourite film aged 12: Speed

Continuing our series in which writers revisit childhood movie passions, we get back on the bus for an audaciously over-the-top thrill ride with Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock.

10. Duffy praised by Rape Crisis for going public with details of ordeal

Account of kidnap and rape will help to stop others suffering in silence, says charity.

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