When the only way was down

Stephanie Merritt's The Devil Within is a memoir of a devastating mental illness, says Anushka Asthana

The need to blow up sheds

The Creative Feminine and Her Discontents, by Juliet Miller, packs a powerful and joyful punch and makes provocative reading, says Michèle Roberts

Here’s looking at you

On reading Raymond Tallis' The Kingdom of Infinite Space, Jane O'Grady is reminded of what a glorious thing it is to be human

Quacks on the rack

Rose Shapiro's Suckers and Trick or Treatment by Simon Singh and Edzard Ernst explore the actual worth of alternative medicine and its practitioners, says Olivia Laing

Scrubs up nicely

Lucy Ellmann finds out in Katherine Ashenburg's Clean how we learnt to wash and go

My private hell

She was a young, successful writer with a flourishing career and a new baby. So why did she come within moments of throwing herself from a train? Stephanie Merritt describes the crisis that almost claimed her life

The getting of wisdom

At 35, Lorna Martin had come to a crisis in her life. Turning to therapy for some answers, she recorded her progress in a weekly column that is now being published as a book. But, wonders Zoe Williams, is she really any the wiser?

Second-hand spooks

Do we need another look at Victorian spiritualism, asks Kathryn Hughes, after reading Servants of the Supernatural by Antonio Melechi

Disturbed lives

Salley Vickers applauds an acute and sobering account of the treatment of mentally ill women in Mad, Bad and Sad: A History of Women and the Mind Doctors from 1800 to the Present by Lisa Appignanesi