But What If We’re Wrong? by Chuck Klosterman
Reviewed by Simon How many non-fiction books do you come across which combine literature, music, television, sports, science, and aliens? Not that many, I’m going to wager – but, then,…
The Middlepause; On Turning Fifty by Marina Benjamin
Reviewed by Victoria When you think of all the great defining events of an ordinary life and how often they feature as the focus of a novel – growing up,…
Metamorphosis; How and Why We Change by Polly Morland
Reviewed by Victoria ‘Our culture is one in which,’ Polly Morland writes, ‘more than ever before, we feel entitled to change our experiences and ourselves to fit with our dreams…
The Lonely City: Adventures in the Art of Being Alone by Olivia Laing
Reviewed by Marina Sofia There are some who crave solitude, others who fear it. There are those who crave some idealized version of solitude, à la Thoreau, absorbing the lessons…
The Outrun by Amy Liptrot
Reviewed by Rebecca Foster The Outrun has recently been shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize, awarded annually to a work that engages with medical themes. That’s because, put simply, it’s a…
Neurotribes: The Legacy of Autism and How to Think Smarter About People Who Think Differently by Steve Silberman
Reviewed by Liz Dexter This book, which won the 2015 Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction, goes into the history of autism, research on autism and related syndromes over the years…
The Social Brain: How Diversity Made the Modern Mind by Richard Crisp
Reviewed by Anne Goodwin In the decades following the end of the Second World War, social psychology was preoccupied with an attempt to explain how ordinary people could commit such…
The Argonauts by Maggie Nelson
Reviewed by Rebecca Hussey Maggie Nelson has had what one might call a cult following ever since the 2009 publication of her genre-bending essayistic prose-poem Bluets. While many readers, even…
Smoke Gets in Your Eyes by Caitlin Doughty
Reviewed by Eleanor Franzén Caitlin Doughty was a twenty-three-year-old with a degree in medieval history when she decided to become a mortician. The decision wasn’t spontaneous; she had been obsessed…
Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig
Reviewed by Victoria If I ever get to meet Matt Haig, the first thing I would like to do, now I’ve read his book, is give him a hug. I’m…
The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat by Oliver Sacks
Reviewed by Simon It has been thirty years since Oliver Sacks’ most famous book, The Man Who Mistook His Wife For a Hat, was published and, while it does not need…
Creatures of a Day and Other Tales of Psychotherapy by Irvin D. Yalom
Reviewed by Victoria I am a huge fan of shrink lit, the small genre of books that feature psychotherapy, because they almost invariably explore and unpack some of the most…
Mind Change: How Digital Technologies are Leaving Their Mark on our Brains by Susan Greenfield
Reviewed by Stefanie. Mind Change: How Digital Technologies Are Leaving Their Mark on Our Brains, Susan Greenfield has provided us with an even-keeled examination of the intersection of digital technology…
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Books About Books, Publishing
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Non Fiction
What We See When We Read by Peter Mendelsund
Reviewed by Rebecca Hussey The immediate effect of reading Peter Mendelsund’s What We See When We Read was to make me want to pick up a novel right away and start thinking…
Do No Harm by Henry Marsh
Review by Annabel I always find accounts of lives worked in medicine absolutely fascinating, especially those of surgeons, who live on the cutting edge (sorry!) of medical science. It takes…
The Skeleton Cupboard by Tanya Byron
Reviewed by Victoria Best When my son was still a child, he used to be transfixed by The House of Tiny Tearaways, a BBC programme in which families experiencing some nightmare…
The Trip to Echo Spring by Olivia Laing
By Max Dunbar A decade or so into his career as a bestselling novelist, horror writer Stephen King ran into problems. He was drinking constantly and taking cocaine, banging out…
The Examined Life by Stephen Grosz
Reviewed by Victoria Best Best book of the year so far is Stephen Grosz’s compilation of case stories from his thirty years as a psychotherapist, The Examined Life; How We Lose…
Give Me Everything You Have: On Being Stalked by James Lasdun
Reviewed by Victoria Best In the autumn of 2003, James Lasdun ran a fiction workshop at an American college where he met a talented Iranian-American student whom he calls ‘Nasreen’….
Far From the Tree by Andrew Solomon
Reviewed by Jackie Bailey Five words from the blurb: parents, exceptional, children, difference, acceptance. Far From the Tree is the most important book I’ve ever read. It is a masterpiece of…
Falling into the Fire by Christine Montross
Written by Victoria Best I begin to wonder whether there is an entry in the DSM (the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) for readers like me, who find themselves…