Six great reads: Katherine Ryan, a missing backpacker returns, and Fast Food Nation redux

1. Hard to digest: we still live in Fast Food Nation

In the quarter of a century since Eric Schlosser published Fast Food Nation, his hugely bestselling look at the impact of a food system controlled by a handful of multinationals, the dangers of industrialised food are growing. In this extract from a special 25th anniversary edition of the book, Schlosser looks back at the personal attacks he faced after publication, and the increased concentration of who controls the food we eat.

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2. Ingrid disappeared on an Indonesian island in 1976. Now we know what really happened

Ingrid in Point of Change. Photograph: Kevin Lovett

“Ingrid LeFebour woke up on a concrete slab, covered in a sheet in the morgue on the remote Indonesian island of Nias in 1976, she had no idea how she got there.Nor did anyone else know her fate – some believed she had died in bizarre circumstances.”

LeFabour’s disappearance featured prominently in the film Point of Change, a documentary about “discovery” of Nias by Australian surfers in the 1970s. When the film had its first screening in Fremantle last month, there was one person no one expected to be among the audience – LeFebour herself … Writer and professional surfer Lucy Small told the extraordinary story.

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3. ‘I’ve got a fearlessness to being laid bare’: how Yungblud became Britain’s biggest rock star

‘Superstar’ … Yungblud.

His turn at last year’s star-packed Black Sabbath tribute concert introduced Yungblud to a whole new audience beyond his burgeoning gen Z fanbase. Now, wrote our pop critic Alexis Petridis, he’s become a genuine rock superstar.

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4. ‘Blood in the water’: Bari Weiss’s chaotic first three months in charge of CBS News

CBS News head, Bari Weiss. Photograph: Daniel Paik/AP

Former New York Times journalist Bari Weiss was chosen by Paramount’s new CEO David Ellison to take over CBS News in early October with no television industry experience, and already facing deep skepticism from many network employees and a faltering business model. Her first three months in charge, wrote Jeremy Barr, the Guardian’s US media and power reporter, have been more chaotic than even many of her critics expected.

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5. Trump’s assault on the Smithsonian: ‘The goal is to reframe the entire culture of the US’

In the frame … US presidents at the National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC, USA. Photograph: Pete Kiehart/The Guardian

Charlotte Higgins’s deeply reported account of how Donald Trump is targeting the Smithsonian, as part of his wider assault on American culture, was a chilling read about the depths of the administration’s attempts to reshape the very idea of what America is.  

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6. ‘I love money!’: Katherine Ryan on success, feminism, bad reviews and ballsiness

Photograph: Suki Dhanda/The Guardian

Now one of the biggest names in British comedy, Katherine Ryan arrived in the UK nearly 20 years ago and was instantly poor – and soon trading the demands of being a single mother with late-night standup work until her career rapidly took off. Zoe Williams met her (and her baby) at the Guardian’s London office.

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