I have only just rediscovered the joy of reading again. After loving
it as a kid, I lost interest at uni (even though I studied English).
Now a book is on my checklist of staples before I leave the house –
it goes: phone, Oyster, reading material.

I was therefore interested in the longlist for the Man Booker prize
2016 announced this week. It includes some well-known writers as
well as a few newbies. One book I love that is on that list is Hot
Milk by Deborah Levy, which I bought before a holiday (I know the
saying but I was enticed by the cover – see below). However, the text
did not disappoint me. It was successful in capturing human
relationships, in particular the tension between mother and daughter – their relationship being the focus of the story. It creates a
marvellously tense atmosphere and keeps you guessing throughout.

Other books I recommend for the summer (although not on the Man Booker list) include the much-hyped The Girls by Emma Cline – a book that even comes with the approval of Lena Dunham. I loved the descriptive language and the way it perfectly captures the insecurity of youth. It reminded me of that desperate teenage yearning to have a place in the world.

The other book I would recommend is All Involved by Ryan Gattis – a very different story indeed about the LA riots in the 1990s. It explores the lives of several different characters who are all somehow caught up in the gang wars of that time. The best way to describe its effect is that it’s like watching a TV documentary in the form of a book. Think The Wire.

Finally, right now I’m in the middle of Modern Lovers by Emma Straub, a new novel out this summer that explores contemporary life through the relationship of three college friends who find that their own teenage children are now growing up and having their own sexual relationships. So far I’m only a couple of chapters in, but it’s really entertaining. The characters are complex and likeable, and I am interested in finding out more about their past that has brought them to where they are now. It’s one of those stories that makes you realise that life really does run away from you.

We would love to hear what others are reading this summer. The
guardian has a call out here but you can also email me with
suggestions (sarah.marsh@theguardian.com). Oh and, of course, add them to the comments.

This week the social media evolution of the story about Byron Hamburgers has been the thing that caught my eye.

The first mentions of the story I saw all linked to this Spanish account of what had happened. It didn’t take long for British media to catch up. If you haven’t seen the story, the bare bones are that Byron Burgers set up a training meeting that staff were asked to go to, but when they got there it turned out to be a raid by immigration officers.

Our reporters spoke to several members of staff, who wanted to remain anonymous. One said “I feel really sad about this. Everyone is hysterical about immigration. It feels like it must have been in the 1930s or something.”

Social media was quick to judge the company, and a #BoycottByron hashtag sprang up.

The argument is that it was unethical for the company to collude with immigration authorities in this way, and effectively ship its own staff off to an uncertain future. A demonstration is planned for Monday outside one of Byron’s London restaurants.

The counter argument ran that actually it was Byron who had been exploited – by migrants using fake documentation that put the company at risk of legal action, and deprived people who did have the right to work in the UK of jobs. What else was Byron supposed to do?

The row on Twitter, obviously, became rather embittered, and not safe for lunchtime social viewing.

Like many things on social media, it is easy to dismiss the hashtag as “slacktivism” and reducing complex arguments to a few characters. But I think the story has opened people’s eyes to some wider issues.

The size of the raid suggests there may be a larger number of migrants working using false papers in the catering trade than was previously believed.

And the question remains – how many companies are turning a blind eye to employing illegal migrants until push comes to shove and the authorities are breathing down their necks?

It also plays into the broader narrative of working in low-paid jobs in the UK in 2016: insecure working conditions, zero-hours contracts, the “gig economy”, tumbling wages.

Still, this being social media, it’s always reassuring to know that, whatever the story, there will be a brand trying to get some #bantz #numbers from it...

Toby Moses, assistant Opinion editor, talks about his favourite commission of the week.

I blame Dr Doolittle. Or perhaps SeaQuest DSV. There’s something about the very simple notion of man speaking to animal that never fails to captivate. So the news that scientists had proved that wild honeyguide birds were communicating with local hunters in Mozambique was too good a story to ignore. Jules Howard delved deeper into this phenomenon to look at what made this story so special. It’s pretty much the sole example of animal and human working together for entirely mutual benefit – with neither exploiting the other. “The deal itself is simple. Humans want the honey. The birds want the bee grubs. The bird leads the humans to the honey and both species come out of the deal happier than when they went in. In biological terms, this is mutualism. Though humans get something out of it, we are undoubtedly being exploited in the process. And that’s OK.”

Of course the dream is that we might go further than this. Anyone who has heard whale song or dolphin chatter cannot fail to be certain that there’s some serious gossiping going on under the sea. Surely it’s not beyond the wit of man to learn how to converse with our cetacean friends? Jules offered little hope of that – although the tale of friendly dolphins in Laguna talking with “head slaps” to the fishermen offered some consolation. Perhaps Darwin – the talking dolphin from SeaQuest – might not be so far-fetched after all.

Loving this submission ...

Add yours to the mix here.

Journalist behind our tech in Africa series Mark Rice-Oxley, the Guardian’s head of special projects, shares his views on how it’s so far been received.

Any Africa correspondent – and not just on this newspaper – will tell you that it can be hard graft. Not just reporting pieces, but getting western audiences to read them.

So it has been particularly gratifying to see readers piling into our series on Africa’s digital revolution. Project journalism like this sometimes occupies an awkward space in the newsroom. Is it news? Well, not in the technical sense of someone doing something nasty to someone else in a single given moment. But does it tell people things they don’t know? Yes. And in some senses, a snapshot in time like this that pulls together dozens of slow-burn developments and assesses what they mean may contain more “news” than an account of a single event.

Readers have been generous, with more than 10,000 shares on the series so far and many hundreds of comments and retweets.

Some readers are deeply sceptical that technological innovation can bring anything but misery, addiction and Pokémon Go to a continent that hardly needs it:

Johann Brandstatter remarked:

What difference is playing games via the Internet on your mobile phone going to make ?

Others questioned whether a continent with big problems of infrastructure, corruption and governance can harness the full benefits of the internet and smartphone technology.

But some like paddyd2009 took a more optimistic approach:

Africa is the BIG opportunity and smart money is being invested there!

Sure fixed electricity is a problem, but sunlight is so abundant that a few solar cells on the roof and battery storage will go a long way. Both are rapidly coming down in price, and the power consumption of mobile phones and tablets is a few watts rather than 100’s of watts for a desktop computer.

Dictators may threaten to periodically turn it off, but as smartphones become increasingly common, they can in emergency cases form their own networks, passing information around regardless of government attempts.”

The series continues next week. It’s being supported by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Guardian partners with a wide range of external backers to fund quality journalism in these straitened economic times.

This made us chuckle ...

What a week - more violence, terrorism and the rhetoric of rage. Despite being in the full throes of summer, or silly season in journalism, the world has been feeling pretty dark of late.

Like many journalists I’ve been watching the Republican and Democratic national conventions with interest over the past few weeks. I’ve been thinking a lot about the stories we miss in newsrooms, particularly given how wrong we’ve been when it comes to recent political events in the UK. Brexit has made me think anything is possible, with one of those things being a president Trump.

So this week when Michael Moore listed his reasons why he thinks Trump will win, I was all ears. But as a data reporter my interests lie in looking at polling data. The New York Times presidential prediction model came out last week and is being constantly updated with new polls and ratings of other news outlets. It’s a very similar approach we took at the Guardian to predicting the outcome of the 2015 general elections. Though knowing how wrong we got it in the UK with the 2015 and once again with the EU Referendum, my sense is that public opinion has fragmented to the point where perhaps polls aren’t a reliable way of capturing political sentiment.

Listening to fellow data reporters, like Harry Enten from FiveThirtyEight, talk about how they dismissed the likelihood of Trump getting the Republican nomination only further confirms my concerns when it comes to how out of touch we might be. The gap between the polls and what is happening on the ground is what worries me more than anything.

We can dismiss people with views other than our own too easily. In the UK we were wrong about Brexit, we were verging on complacent during the previous general elections. My sense is we might be off again when it comes to predicting who will win the US election. But, hey, maybe I’ll be wrong about this one too.

Every week we will challenge you to take a photo of something different and share it with us. This week we want you to capture an item that’s close at hand, basically anything that stands out on your desk. It could be a bizarre souvenir a colleague brought you back from holiday, a photo of your loved ones or something that just appeared one day. You probably still have no idea who owns it. Get involved by clicking on this link.

Pokémon Go is a global craze that has seen atheists flock to churches, naive New Zealanders led to Hell’s Angels clubs, car accidents from distracted playing drivers, people walking straight into the sea or off a cliff and even venturing into nuclear evacuation zones.

It’s great. It gets people out on the street, walking, chatting, socialising and exploring, but it’s important to remember: Pokémon Go is just a game and playing it doesn’t mean leaving your common sense at home.

• Remember the virtual world is based on the real world. If a Pokémon shows up in a dark alley, think twice before blindly walking down there. Players with their phones out and heads down are being mugged.

• Watch where you walk. Roads, cars, people and bikes exist in the real world, even if your Pokémap is a vacant landscape filled only with monsters ripe for capture. Put your head up and don’t cross the road while staring at your phone.

• Move in groups. Pokémon pop up just as frequently for your friends as you and there is safety in numbers. Get together with friends on your street ventures and you’ll have the added benefit of having help taking over gyms once you get there.

Some articles with valuable insider tips worth checking out here:

It comes as no surprise that Drake - all pervading megastar of the internet, a man so viral the cat community have taken to mixing Temazepam into their Sheeba - has been at No 1 for 15 weeks. Just to be clear, One Dance first entered the charts in April. Back when the EU referendum campaign had just begun and all we had to worry about was what to get the Queen for her 90th. Simpler, innocent times.

This evening we find out if the Canadian rapper’s success continues. If it’s at No 1 in the UK top 40 again, One Dance could beat Bryan Adams’s Everything I Do (I Do It For You), which topped the charts for 16 weeks in 1991.

Even though we’re living in a time of huge cultural, societal and political upheaval, the One Dance phenomenon has still managed to ruffle feathers – particularly on one specific message board I stumbled across. One commenter regarded its popularity as an “absolute travesty”. Another proclaimed: “This cannot and must not be allowed to equal Bryan’s record.”

They are perhaps upset because of the shift in modern music consumption. One Dance may not feel as ubiquitous as Adams’ single – a song projected from cinema and TV screens, blasted out from car stereos, at weddings, school discos, birthing pools and quite possibly crematoriums. It was so omnipresent that any irritation that first existed simply dissolved into acceptance, then approval, then wild adoration – you found yourself stumbling out of Woolworths one arm carrying a plastic bag filled with copies of CD single and the other cradling a sack of pick N mix. One Dance on the other hand, is being streamed in the millions; but it’s happening at house parties, through headphones. It is a private form of listening, but it is listening, none the less. Of those streaming One Dance on Spotify, 66% are apparently under 25. We truly are a nation divided.

In the spirit of furious debate, I offer you my favourite summer tracks below, ranging from a vodka soaked soundtrack 90s salaciousness to a heavenly, hippy dreamscape. And Crowded House. Please let me know what yours are, and why you think my music taste is an absolute travesty.

Minnie Riperton - Les Fleurs

Len - Steal My Sunshine

Blur - Girls and Boys

Roy Ayers - Everybody Loves the Sunshine

Crowded House - Weather With You

Our community team scoured through the comments and debates on the website this week, and wanted to highlight the lively debate under this piece about babies on planes, and why parents feel the need to say sorry for them. Here are some of the best comments:

ID9438940

27 July 2016 10:05pm

This happened to me today on a train. Woman got on with two small children and sat in the seats directly across the aisle. Two kids, two electronic devices, both at top volume. After trying to change seats, even checking next carriage, eventually plucked up the courage to ask her, politely, if she could lower the volume. The look I was met with could've turned milk sour, and her attitude was aggressive to say the least. She gave me a mouthful about how I was lucky she wasn't sat right next to me (bit bizarre), I was left feeling embarrassed, volume stayed the same. Small kid then proceeded to have a massive meltdown and screamed his head off. This didn't bother me, kids do this sort of stuff all the time, but her attitude was awful. Just be aware of people around you and have a bit more respect for your fellow commuters. Not too much to ask, surely?

JemimaPuddleduck

27 July 2016 8:48pm

I think the point is that most parents are totally flustered and embarrassed the moment their child makes so much as a peep, not that they are all entitled and smug and happy to let their kid wail forever.
It Is a little bit sad that parents of young babies feel they have to apologize for their little one's potential involuntary behavior in advance, despite the fact that the parents will probably be doing everything they possibly can to try to soothe the baby and quieten the noise anyway. Nobody wants the baby to cry, least of all the parent, and you can bet the parent will be having a harder time than anyone else on the flight. Giving out apology bags is fine, but it does suggest a society in which parents are immediately blamed and vilified for their children's behavior, even when they are too young to possibly behave in any other way. I think that's sad and that it would be nice if we could expect our fellow members of the public to react with more compassion rather than judgement (which has actually been the case any time I have had to fly with my kids). Giving out apology notes is good karma though, however twee it may be, so nothing wrong with doing it i suppose.

WitNit

27 July 2016 8:08pm

The growing intolerance towards children in public spaces in the developed world is a sign of how narcissistic we are becoming as a society (and I am expressly excluding children who are seriously badly behaved or parents who don't care).

Add your thoughts on this article in the comments on the piece or below the line here.

Here are four images that struck a chord this week, as selected by our picture desk. Was there a picture that stood out to you? Tell us about it and share a link to it in the comments.

Below is our audience editor, Chris Moran, offers some insight into our most-read pieces.

In a week of atrocities it’s no surprise to find the awful events in Munich, Japan, Ansbach and Normandy at the top of our most-seen list for the last seven days. They’re joined by two other very different stories that reached huge scale: a new link between alcohol and cancer and, rather more frivolously, the difficulty of being both Maurice Micklethwaite and Michael Caine. There was no doubt about the video of the week. Michelle Obama’s barnstorming DNC speech captured the imagination in a way that even her husband couldn’t challenge. And David Smith’s propulsive take on that speech was one of our longest-read pieces of the week, particularly in relation to its length.

Inside the newsroom what’s being read is a constant point of fascination, so it’s good to share this with readers. Without more ado, here is a selection of our top pieces in terms of traffic.

Our most read pieces

Most read this week was the live blog following events in Munich when a teenage gunman murdered nine people. All of the top five articles were (perhaps unsurprising) news. The shooting of a black man in Florida, lying with his arms in the air, was second and the murder of a priest in France third. It’s a reminder of just how many horrific and tragic stories have occupied the news in recent weeks.

This story about alcohol and its possible links to cancer also got a lot of clicks and shares. The study referenced in the article, published in the scientific journal Addiction, concludes that there is more than simply a link or statistical association between alcohol and cancer that could be explained by something else.

Elsewhere, news that Michael Caine had changed his name to, well, Michael Caine got a lot of readers excited.

And more evidence (as if it was needed) that sex sells, another top-hitter took a look at the intimate side of people’s relationships, which people sharing their most memorable sexual experiences.

Let’s end with some good news shall we? Among out top 20 was a story that silences the critics who dismiss viral charity as “slacktivism”. The 2014’s ALS ice bucket challenge – which saw everyone from Lena Dunham to Patrick Stewart douse themselves in icy water for charity – raised more than $100m in a 30-day period, and was able to fully fund a number of research projects.

It would be great to hear views and thoughts on our most-read list, as well as comments about what you made for these stories.

Welcome to the very first (hopefully of many) Guardian socials. What is this, you ask? It’s simple: a space for our readers to come and talk to one another, share ideas and engage with our journalists – hearing views from inside and outside the building.

Throughout the morning we will publish journalists’ comments on the news of the week/ viral hits/ amazing photos, as well as recommendations on what to read or why they commissioned something.

We will also roundup the most read and most commented on articles that have struck a chord with our readers, offering you the chance to mull them over and debate with others in the comments.

The idea is to create a community space for our readers to come together with like-minded individuals, as well as a platform to showcase and give a behind-the-scenes look at some the journalism we are producing. We want you to bring your thoughts and ideas to the thread, and tell us what has been on your mind.

We hope you will join us weekly to share updates on projects, ideas and pictures on a variety of topics.

Look forward to chatting from 12pm to 2pm.