The British-Ghanaian author on having his mind blown by Malorie Blackman as a child, the allure of John Williams’s Stoner and why Zadie Smith made him want to writeMy earliest reading memory Reading Biff and Chip in my first couple of years of primary school. I loved those books and was always desperate for the next one.My favourite book growing up...

It may have looked like something you’d see a bank teller use, but it withstood heavy battering. And it ran the coolest gamesI have told my wife that I want a Mini Amiga for Christmas. I know it’s only April, but I do this with things I want in the hope that when it suddenly appears in the house next week, my wife will think she bought it for me. I...

(PIAS) The Manchester band sing about edginess and emotional danger, but never manage to give their beats any tensionYou can imagine a private members’ club commissioning Porij as artists-in-residence: the young Manchester band makes dance music so smooth and so inoffensive that I can imagine it goes down a treat among the UK’s young, moneyed finance...

The Palme d’Or winner takes aim at the fashion world as models have a disastrous time on a luxury yacht, while Anne Hathaway falls for a boyband star in a swoony, steamy romanceSwedish film-maker Ruben Östlund has seemingly made it his life’s work to satirise the bourgeoisie – from the nuclear family in meltdown in Force Majeure to the pretentious art-world...

Artists from Dua Lipa to Nia Archives are tapping the boisterous energy of mid-90s music – and even embracing the union jack. Can they avoid the genre’s laddish lows?For some, Britpop was a high point for British guitar music: that time when Blur, Pulp, Suede and Oasis thrilled the world with wit and brio. Others argue it has aged worse than Loaded...

(Better Company Records) The New York multi-instrumentalist, who has played with Philip Glass and Steve Reich, shows great flair for making minimalism rich and harmonically complexCrowell has been an in-demand musician around New York for more than a decade – playing saxophone, flute and guitars with the likes of the Philip Glass Ensemble, the Bang...