Culture

Jonathan C Slaght: ‘I don’t like bears. They’re vindictive’

The wildlife biologist on his surprise hit Owls of the Eastern Ice, why tigers do well under autocrats, and lessons learned from Russia’s untamed spaces

Joe Goddard’s cultural highlights

The Hot Chip star on the power of Nickel Boys, a ballpoint biro masterpiece, and getting into Fela Kuti

Mrinalini Mukherjee and the giants of Indian art

The artist’s original, larger-than-life woven effigies stand out in the Royal Academy’s pocket survey of South Asian works

Yorgos Lanthimos’s conspiracy comedy Bugonia is deranged

Emma Stone is terrific as a kidnapped big pharma boss in a story that is both savage and uncomfortably timely

The return of Danny Robins’s supernatural series Uncanny

Listeners tell their spooky stories in this Halloween special, but many shouldn’t have got past a drunken chat. Plus, Keir Starmer’s musical choices fail to move

London’s first ‘sonic hair salon’

An ambitious new hairdressers’ fuses mirrors, metal and a high-end audio experience in a former Victorian storehouse

Zadie Smith and Anne Enright: the art of paying attention

In rigorous, curious essays, two novelists examine the way we live now

The Line of Beauty is an almost great gay play

The Almeida’s adaptation of Alan Hollinghurst’s novel about 80s queer culture and class division misses the book’s hilarious shifts from formality to filth

Jane Bown: eye to eye with the artists

Memories of the late photographer who, over a 60-year career at the Observer, indelibly captured cultural icons from Hockney to Bacon

Paperback of the week: Driver by Mattia Filice

A French train driver’s 20-year career across the tracks is distilled into a remarkable free-verse novel about the rhythms of work

Down Cemetery Road – a fresh female take on Slow Horses

Emma Thompson’s foul-mouthed private eye follows hot on the trail of the Apple TV hit in a bold, funny series. Plus, the engrossing tales of Once Upon a Time in Space

Salman Rushdie’s The Eleventh Hour: For once, words fail him

After his remarkable memoir Knife, the writer showcases his worst habits in a rambling, uneven short-story collection

What to read to understand friendship

Three books that explore the complicated fellowships that shape a life

Why women keep secrets

The Book of Revelations finds Juliet Nicolson exploring the history and politics of female secrecy

‘In girl bands, there’s always one they tear down’

The former Atomic Kitten star on the price of fame, touring with Katie Price, and blasting out her hits in the car

Philip Pullman’s The Rose Field: a manifesto for how to be human

The epic conclusion to The Book of Dust is an urgent critique of capitalism from a storyteller of exceptional power

The grid: Welcome to Fliffmellington

When artist Paolo Puck had to leave his home, he dreamt up a world of his own

Mariana Enríquez: ‘The fear of the old female body is out of control’

The Argentinian writer on her cemetery obsession, horror’s fixation with ageing, and the novel she tossed on the barbecue