Six great reads: France’s greatest quizzer, rise of the ‘porno-trolls’ and McCartney on the farm

1. A cultural revolution? Trump’s America feels oddly familiar to those watching from China

Illustration: Victoria Hart/Guardian Design

Between the demands of loyalty, the attack on institutions and the targeting of enemies, Amy Hawkins explored the “cultural revolution” under way in the US, and how life in Trump’s America is becoming eerily familiar to those who lived in China under Mao.

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2. ‘I can quiz for 17 hours a day!’: how Émilien became Europe’s greatest ever gameshow winner

Serial winner … Émilien. Composite: Guardian Design; Frederic Scheiber for The Guardian

For nearly two years, mononymous quiz prodigy Émilien conquered all on French general knowledge quizshow, Les Douze Coups de Midi (The Twelve Strokes of Noon). His extraordinary winning streak has made him a young millionaire. Paris correspondent Angelique Chrisafis met him to find out his secret, which turns out to be … paying attention: “In any everyday conversation with anyone about anything at all, the discussion might turn to, ‘Oh, didn’t you know that?’ And I’ll go and jot it down.”

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3. ‘I knew I needed help. I knew it was over’ – Anthony Hopkins on alcoholism, anger, Academy Awards – and 50 years of sobriety

Conquering his demons … Anthony Hopkins. Photograph: Bill Reitzel

As the actor approaches his 90th year and publishes an autobiography, he spoke to Steve Rose about his early years on stage, being inspired by Laurence Olivier, becoming a Hollywood star and conquering his demons, including his 1970s wake-up call from alcoholism after driving 500-miles blind drunk: “I got out on the street, 11am, 29 December 1975, and everything looked different. Everything seemed sunnier, everything seemed more … benign. No threat in the air.”

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4. Rise of the ‘porno-trolls’: how one porn platform made millions suing its viewers

Illustration: Guardian Design; Source images via Getty Images

A company called Strike 3 has clogged US courts with lawsuits, mostly against porn watchers who feel shamed into settling privately. Tarpley Hitt explored a legal phenomenon which has landed on the desks of federal judges across the US, led to the birth of a cottage industry of defence attorneys taking on the cases, and raised complex questions about the technology underpinning the lawsuits.

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5. Even when unthinkable things were happening to me, my first instinct was to work. Am I addicted?

Desk dilemma … Jenny Kleeman. Photograph: Suki Dhanda/The Guardian

Have you ever heard a word that jolts you to attention? That word, for me, was “workaholism” – and when I heard it through my headphones earlier this year, listening to an audiobook on the tube, I felt a pang of something between recognition and panic. It transported me back to the worst time in my life.

In this powerful piece, feature writer Jenny Kleeman looked in depth at workaholism and how it impacts those – like her – who have felt unable to step back.

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6. ‘The world said I was dead – in so many ways I was’: Paul McCartney on the lost years after the Beatles

Paul, Linda, Heather and Mary McCartney in Scotland. Photograph: © 1971 Paul McCartney under exclusive licence to MPL Archive LLP. Photographer: Linda McCartney

In 1969, as the band imploded, the singer was 27, depressed and drowning in a sea of legal and personal rows. He hadn’t died, as rumour had it, but he was struggling. Here McCartney introduced an oral history of how his family’s escape to a remote Scottish farm helped him move on from John, George and Ringo.

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