The big idea: should doctors be able to prescribe psychedelics?

A move to allow Australian psychiatrists to treat depression with psilocybin may herald a new era

Friendaholic by Elizabeth Day review – friends with benefits

A candid examination of the difference between being good at friendships and being a good friend

Good Girls by Hadley Freeman review – anorexia from within

The journalist and former in-patient offers a clear-eyed view of a debilitating and misunderstood illness

‘We’re in a golden age for microbes’: the man rewriting history from the perspective of germs

Forget ‘great men’ – infection and disease are the really important forces in the development of humankind, believes public health specialist Jonathan Kennedy

The links between pollution and miscarriage: ‘This is the stuff nightmares are made of’

Journalist Isabelle Oderberg has spent years researching the links between pollution and early pregnancy loss. What she has learned keeps her up at night

Travellers to Unimaginable Lands by Dasha Kiper review – how dementia changes lives

A clinical psychologist turns the spotlight on caregivers in this profoundly compassionate study

The People’s Hospital: why public healthcare can be successful in the US

A physician’s book details the success of a Houston hospital that treats uninsured Americans stranded by the system

The Art of the Straight Line review – how tai chi brought out Lou Reed’s mild side

The singer-songwriter transformed his later life practising the martial art, as this compilation of writing, edited by his widow Laurie Anderson, shows

Weathering by Arline Geronimus review – how discrimination makes you sick

A public health expert charts the cumulative effect of prejudice on peoples’ bodies, from heart disease to cancer

In brief: Don’t Think, Dear; My Nemesis; Handmade – reviews

A thoughtful memoir casts a critical eye on ballet, a gripping novel digs deep into feminine rivalry and a bracing manifesto extols the virtue of woodcraft