The Story of Pain: From Prayer to Painkillers review – Joanna Bourke’s erudite and witty study
Poets and priests as well as medics are consulted in Joanna Bourke's bold study of the human response to pain, writes Salley Vickers
How Not to Be Wrong: The Hidden Maths of Everyday Life by Jordan Ellenberg – digested read
John Crace crunches the mathematics professor's words on life's conundrums down to a more manageable number
Elizabeth Is Missing review – Emma Healey’s dementia detective story
A novel narrated by an 82-year-old searching the neighbourhood for her elderly friend is both brilliant and unconvincing, writes Andrea Gillies
The Trip to Echo Spring by Olivia Laing review – a study of six alcoholic US writers
Affected by her own family's experience with drink, Laing's book is full of insight, compassion and unexpected beauty, writes Victoria Segal
Black Rainbow review – poetry in a moving account of depression
A journalist and mother charts her descent into illness and the slow rebuilding of her shattered self, writes Stephanie Merritt
Andrew Solomon: ‘Figuring out how to love someone who seems unlovable is very familiar to me’
The books interview: Andrew Solomon, winner of the Wellcome prize, talks to Hadley Freeman about the people who helped him write Far From the Tree, and how their struggles inspired him to start a family of his own
With My Dog Eyes by Hilda Hilst review – not for the faint-hearted
Nicholas Lezard's paperback of the week: Only the second book translated into English from the late Brazilian writer, this short work shows a mind unravelling
Pelican books take flight again
As the non-fiction Penguin imprint relaunches, Paul Laity tells the story of the blue‑spined books that inspired generations of self-improvers – and transformed the publishing world
My guilty pleasure: Eat Pray Love
Watching Juila Roberts take a year-long romp of global self-discovery, the thing most people miss is that the film is a pin-sharp mockery of Liz Gilbert's bestselling book, writes David Jenkins