Sleep Demons by Bill Hayes review – an insomniac’s memoir

Reissued with a new preface, this intimate and beautifully written book brings scientific research alive in a heartfelt and deeply personal narrative

What can we learn about our wellbeing from memoirs of ill health?

Simon Gray, Christopher Hitchens, Joan Didion ... some of the most vivid memoirs have been accounts of illness. But what can they teach us about being well?

Wendy Mitchell on her extraordinary Alzheimer’s memoir

Diagnosed at 58, Mitchell was determined not to be beaten: ‘Why feel ashamed of having a complex brain disease?’

William Giraldi on life as a bookish bodybuilder: ‘It’s a poisoned way to be a man’

As a teenager, William Giraldi would pump himself full of steroids, hit the gym ... and secretly read Keats. His new memoir examines the absurdities of modern masculinity and envisages a better world in which his sons don’t get caught in its toxic grip

Autumn by Karl Ove Knausgaard – digested read

John Crace cuts the Norwegian author’s letter explaining the world to his unborn daughter

Sarah Wilson on living with anxiety: there’s no sugarcoating mental illness

Her cookbook I Quit Sugar made her the face of health and wellness, but Wilson’s memoir, First, We Make the Beast Beautiful, traverses much darker terrain