Beyond borders: the best books about pandemics

As the coronavirus has spread to four continents, Laura Spnney chooses scientific studies, memoirs and novels about Aids, TB, polio and Spanish flu

Dr Rachel Clarke: ‘Wrinkles, middle age, grey hairs… these are reasons to celebrate’

The palliative care doctor on her moving new memoir, Boris Johnson’s broken promises, and why the way we treat dying people should be the number one metric of a civilised society

Can We Be Happier? by Richard Layard review – a breathless tribute to the “science of happiness”

This hard sell from the former ‘happiness tsar’ may be a work of passion but it is slapdash, paternalistic and liable to cause some misery

The age of the individual must end – our world depends on it

The costs of a culture focused on an illusory idea of personal autonomy are making us ill and heating our planet. But a new age may be dawning

The Self Delusion by Tom Oliver review – how we are connected and why that matters

Forget the idea that humans are independent individuals. We need to grasp that we are part of ecosystems

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