Six great reads: the Beatles’ ‘eras’, lost living rooms, and the Free Birth Society

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1. Influencers made millions pushing ‘wild’ births – now the Free Birth Society is linked to baby deaths around the world
Composite: Laurie Avon/Guardian Design
Last weekend we launched The Birth Keepers, Sirin Kale and Lucy Osborne’s year-long investigation into the Free Birth Society (FBS), a US-based business that promotes giving birth without midwives or doctors present. Sirin and Lucy identified 48 cases of serious harm (including late-term stillbirths and neonatal deaths) involving mothers or birth attendants who appear to be linked to FBS, which experts say gives women “dangerous” misinformation. (Since we published, the FBS which says its content is for “educational and informational” purposes, rather than medical advice, dismissed the criticism as inaccurate “propaganda”.) Keep an ear out for The Birth Keepers podcast, too, coming soon on the Guardian Investigates feed.
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2. ‘I almost always play it in hiding, alone’: can anyone get into free jazz, history’s most maligned music?
Pharoah Sanders and Sonny Sharrock, Berlin, 1968. Photograph: Philippe Gras, courtesy of Suong Gras
Even though he’s partial to hideous noise, free jazz – “arguably the most challenging and far-out music one can listen to” – is mostly unknown to the Guardian’s pop critic Alexis Petridis. Could a new guidebook from Sonic Youth’s Thurston Moore change his mind? (Very much so, it turned out.)
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3. ‘It crushed my confidence. I’ve never got over it’: Karen Carney on online abuse – and how Strictly is rebuilding her
Photograph: Lee Malone
She’s the emerging star of this year’s dance show, wowing judges with her pasodoble. In this revealing interview, the pundit and former footballer spoke to Emine Saner about gentleness, bullying, her love of the Lionesses and why she’s never been so happy.
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4. The death of the living room: ‘It’s hard to invite people over – not everyone wants to sit on a bed’
Photograph: Harold M Lambert/Getty Images
Living rooms have long been commonplace within western homes and something many of us take for granted, but according to recent research, a growing number of UK rentals come without living room access. Almost half (49%) of all renters surveyed reported that the living room in their home is now being used as a bedroom. With people having to eat and socialise in kitchens, bedrooms and stairwells, is it possible, asked Leah Harper, to relax and build community without a communal area?
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5. Murder Inc: how my failed attempt to make a Zodiac Killer film took me to the dark heart of the true crime industry
Illustration: Joan Wong/The Guardian
“If you think true crime is inescapable when you’re browsing Netflix or making small talk with your co-workers,” wrote Charlie Shackleton, “try working in the documentary industry. As you traipse from one commissioning meeting to the next, pitching your passion project on the history of mime or the secret life of snails, you can almost hear the words before they’re spoken: ‘Got any other ideas?’ Preferably something with a body count.” When his quest to make a cliche-free film about one of the US’s most notorious cold cases fell apart, Charlie ended up investigating something entirely different – our own morbid curiosity.
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6. The long and winding road: why our opinions about the Beatles keep changing
Ringo, Paul, George and John. Photograph: PR
Fans and historians have spent 60 years debating what the band means – and which member is greatest. Will the returning Anthology project and Sam Mendes’s planned biopics create new arguments? Stuart Maconie’ mapped out the four distinct eras of critical understanding of the band and asked if these recent projects may “encourage us to see the Beatles not as fixed historical figures but as subjects whose meaning continues to evolve with each retelling”.
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