Listen to the silence
Silence may be golden, but where, in this noise-filled world of ours, can you truly experience it? Stuart Jeffries heads off to a spiritual retreat in search of some inner peace
Words reveal their power when given voice
Listening to the spoken word provides important health benefits, as the hundreds of 'read aloud' groups springing up across the country may demonstrate, writes Robert McCrum
Teach Us to Sit Still by Tim Parks
The writer's search for relief from chronic pelvic pain makes a great book out of a wee problem, says William Leith
My Bonnie: How Dementia Stole the Love of my Life by John Suchet, and Keeper: Living with Nancy. A Journey Into Alzheimer’s by Andrea Gillies
Two very different accounts of dementia struggle to make sense of a bewildering and frightening disease, says Kate Kellaway
The Case for Working with Your Hands: Or Why Office Work Is Bad for Us and Fixing Things Feels Good by Matthew Crawford
Peter Forbes swaps his thinking cap for overalls
Sex scandals, rows and mavericks: is it time to regulate psychotherapy?
Long-overdue efforts to bring discipline to the profession and end malpractice by a number of rogue operators are causing tempers to fray
Cookbook’s ‘freshly ground black people’ gaffe boosts sales
The Pasta Bible, most copies of which were pulped because of a typo howler, has seen its sales rise as a result
The Selfish Society by Sue Gerhardt
Can the latest scientific thinking about child development help fix Britain's 'broken society'? asks Phil Hogan
In praise of sexual expression
Susie Bright: Cif is four: Lust makes a liar out of everyone. But without lies, there is no fiction – and stories are where sexual expression really shines
Manufacturing Depression: The Secret History of a Modern Disease by Gary Greenberg
Lewis Wolpert takes issue with a book that accuses drug manufacturers of hyping depression