Five Great Reads: the photo that stopped the world, hellish company towns, and the incredible expanding city

Twisted fingers, sunken eyes: the ‘uncanny valley’ just became even more uncanny with this AI-created ‘fauxtograph’. Photograph: Boris Eldagsen

Welcome to the end of a week that has veered from the awe-inspiring (that solar eclipse) to the head-scratching (that strip-club altercation) to the borderline grotesque (see item one below). If you missed the first two events, may I suggest signing up to our Morning Mail and Afternoon Update newsletters? They’ll keep you up to speed on weekdays.

For now, may I suggest finding the new Everything But the Girl LP on your platform of choice, pressing play (or dropping the needle on the record), and diving into some reads to invigorate the old brain noodles (not to be confused with murder noodles).