You’re Not Listening by Kate Murphy review – a modern epidemic of self-absorbed talk

Restaurants are noisy, social media connections are shallow, giving a TED talk is living the dream. What happened to conversation?

The Great Pretender by Susannah Cahalan review – psychiatry’s dubious past

Brilliant detective work reveals that a famous study of psychiatric hospitals was mostly fiction, but what are the implications?

Good Husbandry by Kristin Kimball review – a new life on a community farm

Sustainability and a love of the land are at the heart of a couple’s approach to farming. But grit and perseverance are essential

The Way We Eat Now by Bee Wilson review – strategies for eating in a world of change

The 21st-century diet consists of ‘unhealthy food, eaten in a hurry’. How did we enter this ‘food hell’?

With Prozac Nation, Elizabeth Wurtzel blew open the memoir as we know it

A daringly unvarnished account of desperate self-absorption, this startling debut redrew the boundaries of confessional writing

The Great Pretender by Susannah Cahalan review – psychologist in the dock

This inquiry into a 1970s experiment that shook the world of psychiatry makes for a compelling read

How to Fail by Elizabeth Day review – learning from things going wrong

The novelist shares lessons from the challenges in her own life and those of famous interviewees

How the Brain Lost Its Mind review – beyond hysteria

In this study of psychiatry and neurology, Allan Ropper and BD Burrell ask: does mental illness reside in the brain or the mind?

Meaty by Samantha Irby review – scatological essays

Outspoken and defiant musings on dating, renting, running out of money – and caring for a parent

I used to scoff at self-help. Then I found out it works

I thought simple life advice was a step towards narcissism – until I started listening to an upbeat California podcast, says writer and critic Alex Clark