The Middlepause by Marina Benjamin and In My Own Times by Jane Miller – review

What does it mean to be middle-aged? Is 50 over the hill? An honest facing up to loss and sadness is an important theme in these valuable studies

Lean in 15: The Shape Plan by Joe Wicks – digested read

The fitness guru’s 15-minute healthy eating recipe plan is trimmed to shape in less than 800 words

A Walk in the Park by Travis Elborough review – what makes a park a park?

William Boyd gives his definition of a park, and praises a wonderful book, full of learning and enthusiasm, that insists we need to cherish and protect these ‘people’s institutions’

Shooting Up: A History of Drugs in Warfare by Lukasz Kamienski review – what turns soldiers into monsters?

Drunk Romans and drugged Americans: the chemical arsenal used to dull the horror of war

A Walk in the Park: The Life and Times of a People’s Institution by Travis Elborough – review

There’s plenty to look at in this enjoyable stroll through the history of our public parks, despite a few omissions

Gut by Giulia Endere review – a celebration of our most under-rated organ

An amusing and delightfully frank primer on our intestines crammed with amazing biological facts and anecdotes from the scatological limits of research

The Voices Within by Charles Fernyhough review – why do we talk to ourselves?

We experience some kind of inner speech for at least a quarter of our waking lives. This helps some, while others set out to reduce the chatter. And how does it relate to God?

‘I have three seconds before she draws blood’: life with extreme eczema

Novelist Maggie O’Farrell’s daughter was born with eczema so severe her skin peeled off in strips. Would they ever find a cure?

Expecting by Chitra Ramaswamy review – the strangeness of the pregnant body

This beautifully rendered account by a gay woman updates the standard narrative of pregnancy and lifts it to another sphere, full of poetic language and references from Voltaire to Almodóvar

Metamorphosis: How and Why We Change by Polly Morland – review

Most of us are wary of change, but it can be the making of us, according to this persuasive study