Smile by Sarah Ruhl review – what if you could no longer look happy?
Robbed of her smile by Bell’s palsy, the playwright is forced to confront difficult truths in this moving and subtle memoir
The big idea: should we eat like our ancestors?
Are eating plans like the paleo diet really healthier - or more ethical - than the way we eat now?
Top 10 books about self-improvement
In time for new year resolutions, a cultural historian chooses some of the best guides to making a better life, dating back to some of our earliest literature
Nonfiction to look out for in 2022
From studies of grief to memoirs from Melvyn Bragg and Jarvis Cocker, along with Norman Scott’s account of a very English scandal, here are the titles coming your way next year
The book I got for Christmas: ‘An emotional bootcamp of sorts’
Continuing our series of Guardian writers revealing their most memorable gift books, Rebecca Liu recalls being given a stack of dating guides as an 18-year-old whose ‘lessons’ were hard to unlearn
The Sweet Spot by Paul Bloom review – the pleasure of pain
An intriguing scientific investigation into why suffering, from mountaineering to BDSM, so often leads to satisfaction
The big idea: Is it your personality, or a disorder?
Psychological diagnoses offer an easy way in to understanding character – but our habit of using them comes at a cost
The Joy of Small Things by Hannah Jane Parkinson review – a compendium of delights
The Guardian writer’s collection of her columns is a droll and open-hearted bite-size read
Jimmy Carr on booze, taxes and being a virgin at 26: ‘Do I sound like an incel elder?’
The controversial comic’s new book is a surprising mix of memoir and self-help. Has having a baby softened his edges? He talks about depression, anxiety, punching down and his friend Sean Lock
A Hunter-Gatherer’s Guide to the 21st Century review – self-help laced with pseudoscience
Heather Heying and Bret Weinstein attempt to show how human nature is at odds with modern society, but their science, and style, grates