Head First by Alastair Santhouse review – a medical memoir with elegance and integrity

In a passionate blend of anecdote and evidence, a consultant psychiatrist shows how the mind and the body are irrevocably connected, despite medicine’s desire to separate and specialise

Neuroscientist Karl Deisseroth: ‘Coronavirus has changed us all’

The neuroscientist and psychiatrist explains Zoom fatigue - and why the conditions of the pandemic can induce an ‘altered state’

In brief: The Hummingbird; 34 Patients; Kant’s Little Prussian Head and Other Reasons Why I Write

A deliciously playful Italian family saga; a doctor’s telling insights into his work; and Claire Messud’s masterly story of her life

The Devil You Know by Dr Gwen Adshead and Eileen Horne review – hard to unsee

A forensic psychotherapist looks beyond the lurid headlines to give a clear-eyed and compassionate insight into patients’ stories

The supersense secret: Steve Biddulph on how to become healthier, happier and more fully human

The psychologist Steve Biddulph believes we are tapping into only a small corner of our potential. In his latest book, he explains how to harness all our senses and gut instincts

In brief: Leave the World Behind; The Breakup Monologues; Diving for Pearls – reviews

Hidden pasts in Dubai, locked-down disaster and a frank, enjoyable relationships guide

A half-shaven head? A handbag of snails at a cocktail party? I just adore a true eccentric

There is probably something in the idea that quirkiness or slightly odd behaviour might have a link with mental illness, neurodiversity or creative skill

Top 10 books about depression

From Robert Burton’s 17th-century Anatomy of Melancholy to new insights from Ed Bullmore, these are welcome guides to one of the loneliest experiences

Everybody by Olivia Laing review – a book about freedom

A moving and clear-eyed history of bodily freedoms that takes as its central character Wilhelm Reich, inventor of the orgone accumulator

A User’s Guide to Melancholy by Mary Ann Lund review – senses of humour

A learned and readable picture of Renaissance medicine with less comic eccentricity than Robert Burton’s 1621 magnum opus