‘I should feel pleased the fast is having the desired effects but my life is boring’
In an extract from her new book Wellmania, Guardian Australia columnist Brigid Delaney recalls the agony – and unfortunate side effects – of a 15-day fast
A Manual for Heartache review – sound advice for the grieving
Cathy Rentzenbrink, who wrote a moving memoir about losing her brother, now offers unpreachy tips to fellow sufferers
The pleasure and pain of leaving the woodland utopia that taught us so much
The author and community leader recalls both frustrations and miracles as he passes his residential sanctuary into new hands
In Pursuit of Memory: The Fight Against Alzheimer’s – review
Joseph Jebelli’s personal study of a disease that has reached epidemic proportions offers the latest research – but not much hope
Future Sex: Emily Witt on new ways of understanding porn, marriage and love
The author discusses her investigation of the new world of relationships and sexuality opening up in the digital age
How to master the art of change in a world in flux
For her book Metamorphosis, Polly Morland interviewed everyone from a man who lost 18 stone to a monk who fell in love. Then Trump and Brexit happened …
Top 10 books about psychoanalysis
Freud’s work changed fiction and philosophy as well as ideas of psychology and sexuality. From Michel Foucault to Philip Roth, here is some great writing about the talking cure
Ice baths and snow meditation: can cold therapy make you stronger?
When Scott Carney set out to debunk the health benefits of extreme cold, a strange thing happened. He tells Tim Adams about lighting his ‘inner fire’
A matter of life and death: William Boyd on the rise of the surgeon-memoir
As surgery finds its voice in literature, what are the responsibilities, risks and rewards of working in the fraught world of the operating theatre?
Sound by Bella Bathurst review – losing and recovering the miracle of hearing
This fascinating memoir of a dozen years of deafness opens out into an exploration of science, music and silence