From Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie to Pope Francis: the books to look forward to in 2025

New work from Zadie Smith, memoirs from Jacinda Ardern and Bill Gates, plus the third instalment in Rebecca Yarros’s romantasy series - here’s the biggest fiction and nonfiction for the year aheadNonfictionThe Bright Side: Why Optimists Have the Power to Change the World by Sumit Paul-Choudhury (Canongate)The science journalist, who lost his wife to ovarian cancer, investigates the potent emotional forces that drive us on in the face of great hardship. Why do we have this capacity for optimism, and what distinguishes it from wishful thinking?Brooke Shields Is Not Allowed to Get Old: Thoughts on Ageing as a Woman by Brooke Shields (Piatkus)The former child actor looks back at her decades-long career under a frequently harsh spotlight and reflects that, despite her industry’s obsession with youth, age brings autonomy and freedom.Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life by Agnes Callard (Allen Lane)Professor of philosophy and a public intellectual for the internet age, Callard shows how Socrates can inform the way we live our lives – from romance to politics – nearly two and a half thousand years after his death.Hope: The Autobiography by Pope Francis (Viking)Pope Francis planned to release this memoir only after his death, but apparently “the needs of our times … have moved him to make this precious legacy available now”. It will be the first ever papal autobiography

Sonic the Hedgehog 3 to The Traitors: a complete guide to the week’s entertainment in the UK

Sonic the Hedgehog 3Out now Dr Robotnik (Jim Carrey) becomes a paid-up member of the school of thought that says if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, teaming up with former adversaries Sonic, Tails and Knuckles against new kid on the block Shadow the Hedgehog, voiced by Keanu Reeves.Better ManOut now One of the buzziest and most outlandish propositions for a film this year, this is that Robbie Williams film you’ve heard about where the erstwhile Take That star is depicted by an ape, or, to be more precise, a chimpanzee. The Greatest Showman’s Michael Gracey directs.The OrderOut now Jude Law stars as Terry Husk, a real-life FBI agent who went undercover with a white-supremacist group led by the neo-Nazi Bob Mathews, in this timely drama from the talented director Justin Kurzel (Snowtown, Nitram).La CocinaOut now Based on the 1957 stage play The Kitchen by Arnold Wesker and written and directed by Alonso Ruizpalacios, this new version reimagines the kitchen in question as belonging to a Times Square tourist trap restaurant where white waitresses take orders for a staff of mostly undocumented migrants

Our readers on their pick of 2024’s best films, music, TV shows and podcasts

Welcome to the last Guide of 2024! I hope you all are enjoying your festive break, and have a better handle on which day it is than I do. As is tradition, after our own roundup of the year’s best culture, we are turning things over to you this week. Here are the films, TV shows, music, performances, and podcasts that wowed you in 2024.Thanks to everyone who sent in suggestions and sorry if we weren’t able to include yours. Enjoy the rest of your Christmas break, and see you on the other side of the new year, for our 2025 preview next Friday!Film“I’m not sure it will get the recognition it deserves when awards season rolls around, but Love Lies Bleeding was the best film I saw in 2024

The best songs of 2024 … that you haven’t heard

“Strumming in opposition to the towers” is how the Bhutan-born, US-based guitarist Tashi Dorji describes his abstract, improvised music. His song and album titles are equally poetic evocations of resistance and decay – his new album is called We Will Be Wherever the Fires Are Lit and contains songs such as Meet Me Under the Ruins and Flowers for the Unsung – and the brusque, clanging strums of his acoustic guitar resound with turmoil and determination. The album opens with Begin From Here, his strings sounding rusted, his attack frenzied. But, gradually, a bass motif emerges from the static – cool-headed and clear of purpose. Laura SnapesMichael Berdan, frontman of US post-hardcore band Uniform, wrote an essay this year on living with bulimia, in which he explained the title of their album American Standard is “the name of a ubiquitous plumbing fixture company

Camila Batmanghelidjh remembered by Lemn Sissay

1 January 1963 – 1 January 2024 The poet tells of his relationship with the founder of Kids Company, who was the ‘embodiment of integrity’ in her work for children in needI first became aware of Camila Batmanghelidjh through the disrupting influence of Kids Company. It was on the frontline of childcare in London, and everybody will remember the strong, vivacious, articulate woman at its head. There was something about her – how she dressed and the words she spoke – that showed me she wasn’t your average founder of a children’s charity. And then there were the stories that radiated out from her. She had a meeting with the queen, and during that meeting she got a call from a child in a panic, and she took the call, left the meeting and went to that child

Katt Williams, crypto and cat ladies: 2024 was the year of unexpected second chances

From comedy to courtroom drama, if you thought you’d seen it all before, that’s because this year … you hadIf 2024 was defined by anything, it was a distinct feeling of deja vu. Donald Trump ran and won, Death Cab and Janet Jackson headlined music festivals, and aesthetes on social media lusted after Windows Vista design language circa 2007. Same old, same old – almost. Because 2024 was also the year of unexpected second chances: in some very special cases, those who suffered a fall from grace or otherwise unfortunate first run in the spotlight got another shot at glory. Call it a comeback, a redemption, or deja vu all over again … for better or worse, it was their year once more