Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg’s guide on what to read at Davos
World Economic Forum releases the definitive reading list ... and it largely excludes women authors
Truly, Game of Thrones fans, the wait for season eight will make it sweeter
says Guardian writer Stuart Heritage
Spielberg’s Ready Player One – in 2045, virtual reality is everyone’s saviour
At last, a film that dares to show the positive side of living in virtual reality. Steven Spielberg’s future shocker, about people using VR to escape hell on Earth, promises to be everything The Matrix wasn’t
‘He began to eat Hermione’s family’: bot tries to write Harry Potter book – and fails in magic ways
After being fed all seven Potter tales, a predictive keyboard has produced a tale that veers from almost genuine to gloriously bonkers
Dawn of the New Everything by Jaron Lanier review – virtual reality patter
The techno-sage and Silicon Valley insider sees VR as emancipatory and liberating but what does ‘shared lucid dreaming’ actually mean?
Top 10 books about high-tech
From histories of world-conquering innovations to fiction that explores their dark side, a leading chronicler of this giddying world chooses the best guides
Howard Jacobson: ‘In pre-weather-app times, “later” was a terrifying concept’
Our mothers prepared us for later by making sure we didn’t leave the house without a pullover, scarf and pac-a-mac
Eminem reveals his writing process – podcasts of the week
The hip-hop rule breaker reminisces about his first rhyme on Rick Rubin and Malcolm Gladwell’s new podcast Broken Record. Elsewhere, our picks of the best podcasts include a focus on Brexit and Bill Bryson’s guide to the London Science Museum
Jaron Lanier: ‘The solution is to double down on being human’
He’s the Silicon Valley visionary who gave us virtual reality. Now, in a new memoir-cum-manifesto, Jaron Lanier recounts his sad, unusual childhood and calls for a re-evaluation of our ties with the digital environment
Horror fiction by numbers: my not-so-shocking AI collaboration
Shelley is an MIT project that aims to produce spooky stories half-written by Twitter users, half by artificial intelligence. It’s – mildly – scary stuff
Franklin Foer: ‘Big tech has been rattled. The conversation has changed’
When the author Franklin Foer first raised concerns about Silicon Valley’s power players, ‘people looked at me funny’. Now his work seems prophetic
Liberation day: the artists fighting the power of the market – and the internet
Hito Steyerl is at war with the commodification of art and the corrupting power of the market. What’s she fighting them with? Manure. Meet the new wave of artists asking us to reconsider everything from the web to war
Somerset cider chocolates and a Hello Kitty bracelet: what to buy this week
Chocs for autumn, cute jewellery, lollipop hand gel and a blood bag of salted caramel for Halloween… these are some of the things we love this week
Kindle Oasis: Amazon finally launches a water resistant e-reader
Premium device switches between ebooks and audiobooks and comes with Bluetooth, longer battery life and aluminium design to tempt readers
On my radar: Carla Bruni’s cultural highlights
The musician and former French first lady on David Hockney, Big Little Lies, Leonard Cohen’s last album and the Yves Saint Laurent museum