A life in writing: Tim Parks
'I couldn't really see a painting or a film or a game of football until I had thought about it in words, or preferably talked about it, or better still written about it'
Albion Dreaming by Andy Roberts – review
Phil Baker takes an eye-opening trip through Britain's relationship with acid
Embracing the Ordinary by Michael Foley – review
Stuart Jeffries on an author who finds magic in the everyday
Our Kind of People by Uzodinma Iweala – review
David Smith is disappointed by the much-feted novelist Uzodinma Iweala's non-fiction account of Aids in Africa
The Spark of Life by Frances Ashcroft – review
David Wootton on a study of humans as electrical machines
Fifty Shades of Grey is bad for bondage
These novels are wrong to demonise people whose erotic style embraces bondage, domination and sadomasochism, writes Pamela Stephenson Connolly
Ninety Days by Bill Clegg; Memoirs of an Addicted Brain by Marc Lewis; The Fix by Damian Thompson – review
Three books on modern cravings embrace drug memoir, neuroscience and society's moral slide, writes Nicholas Lezard
Critical eye: book reviews roundup
Missing Out: In Praise of the Unlived Life by Adam Phillips, Ancient Light by John Banville and How Much Is Enough? by Robert and Edward Skidelsky
Experiment Eleven: Deceit and Betrayal in the Discovery of the Cure for Tuberculosis by Peter Pringle – review
The scandalous treatment of a medical pioneer is still shocks Peter Forbes
The Antidote by Oliver Burkeman – review
Oliver Burkeman renounces 'positive thinking' in his droll search for happiness, writes Alexander Larman