The Society of Timid Souls by Polly Morland – review

In an age of so many real and imagined terrors, can we learn to be brave? By Kathryn Hughes

What Do Women Want?: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire by Daniel Bergner – review

On prosmiscuity, porn, monogamy ... this study of female sexuality overturns some tenacious assumptions, writes Emma Brockes

Dan Brown, diets and Swedish fiction: what we’ve read so far in 2013

Liz Bury: Official sales figures of digital and print books for the first half of the year show a preoccupation with diets and thrillers

Is our love of nature writing bourgeois escapism?

We can't get enough of books about discovering yourself in the wilderness. What's it all about, asks Steven Poole

The Old Ways: a Journey on Foot by Robert Macfarlane – review

Nicholas Lezard's paperback of the week: In the final book in his trilogy about landscape and the human heart, Robert Macfarlane turns his attention to sacred encounters and wild walks

This column will change your life: what’s so wrong about giving up on a book?

'It's fine to abandon books or other projects,' says Oliver Burkeman. 'But you've got to really abandon them, not let them fade amid vague intentions to finish them some day'

Semantic Polarities and Psychopathologies in the Family – review

It may have an unlovely title, but Tim Parks promises this rigorous book will offer you a liberating way of thinking about every family, including your own

The Anatomy of Violence by Adrian Raine – review

Do criminals have different brains? Do murderers have an unusually low pulse rate? By Raymond Tallis

The Norm Chronicles by Michael Blastland and David Spiegelhalter – digested read

John Crace reduces a book about the statistical probability of accidental death to a more manageable 600 words

One in four people have a mental illness – let’s get organised

Ruby Wax: Everyone who suffers any type of mental anguish should have a place to meet – a walk-in centre similar to Alcoholics Anonymous