Reasons to Stay Alive by Matt Haig review – one man’s battle with depression
A timely memoir of mental illness reads as a highly personal and creative response to crisis
Matt Haig: ‘As therapy shows, words can be medicine’
Reasons to Stay Alive, the novelist’s book about his own depression, was much easier to write than to live through, he explains
Spark Joy: An Illustrated Guide to the Japanese Art of Tidying by Marie Kondo – digested read
‘A stray sock on the floor can end in coats piled on a chair … sometimes even in death’
In a Different Key: The Story of Autism by John Donvan and Caren Zucker – review
A frustratingly ambiguous history of autism sheds controversial new light on the actions of Hans Asperger
Do we really need more guides to mindfulness?
From Ruby Wax to poetry anthologies, 2016 brings a glut of mindfulness titles. But does the art of living in the here and now require so many special guides?
Robert Spitzer obituary
Psychiatrist who transformed the ‘world bible’ of psychiatric diagnosis
Unforbidden Pleasures review – taking liberties
Psychoanalyst Adam Phillips’s study of desire and restraint asks more questions than it answers
Your Beauty Mark: The Ultimate Guide to Eccentric Glamour by Dita Von Teese – digested read
‘Mais non! I have just noticed that I have yet again failed to get dressed – all I am wearing is stockings!’
John Forrester obituary
Historian and philosopher who wrote extensively on Freud and psychoanalysis
NeuroTribes by Steve Silberman review – an enlightened take on autism and difference
This sparklingly humane book makes the case that there is no such thing as neurologically ‘normal’
Steve Silberman on winning the Samuel Johnson prize: ‘I was broke, broke, broke’
His first book was about the Grateful Dead. His second, about autism, has just taken the Samuel Johnson prize. Meet neuro-warrior Steve Silberman, friend of Allen Ginsberg and ‘gay coach’ to Oliver Sacks
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert review – lessons in life from the Eat, Pray, Love author
With sufficient Courage and Enchantment, everyone can unleash their inner ice skater
The Book of Human Emotions by Tiffany Watt Smith review – a thought-provoking tour around our feelings
This compendium of emotions from around the world makes you feel we need more words for our feelings, not fewer
Profit, not patients: the risks of private medicine
Ultimately, private providers have their shareholders’ interests at heart, not their patients’. A GP and celebrated writer shares his experiences of how the healthcare system works
Oliver Sacks obituary
Neurologist and writer best known for his books The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and Awakenings