Books

Book of the week: In an extraordinary voice, a neurosurgeon wrestles with his looming untimely death, says Jennifer Rohn

Faith Nibbs on the tensions and accommodations between newcomers and locals in a small town

Novice sociological researchers will find encouragement and help in a programme of exercises whose insights are informed by a group of gorillas, Les Gofton says

The political economist and author of Will Africa Feed China? on George Orwell, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie and mountain-climbing, wine-drinking Tang Dynasty poets

A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

From Mrs Roentgen’s ring to Fukushima fears: Richard Joyner on an informative popular history

Luna Centifanti on the important role that emotions play in our ability to assimilate knowledge

New titles for your to-read list: the law and transgender, world history redux, quantum bananas and eldritch otherworlds

Cait MacPhee on back-of-envelope calculations and other tools to assess value and assumptions

A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

In addition to its firepower, Britain’s fleet exerted an immense soft power that underscored the imperial project, A.W. Purdue writes

Book of the week: Exquisite images trigger the sensations of terror and wonder that nature inspires, says Philip Hoare

The eminent anthropologist on Gielgud, T. S. Eliot, the big blind spots of big data, and a very tatty copy of Marx’s Grundrisse

A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

A study of the Fab Four’s legal woes reveals their naivety and reads like a thriller, says Martin James

Andrew Blake on a study facing up to the reality of working in the arts

Book of the week: Jane O’Grady on a thought experiment that is an endless platform for exploring ethical principles

Scholars seeking to make a difference are let in on the secrets of engagement, says Richard Joyner

Rachel Bowlby traces how a school of literary thought and its major figures hit the big time

It’s a myth that Confucianism kept China unprepared for war: the empire had guns and was not afraid to use them, Jonathan Mirsky writes

Giulia Miller on a study of anti-Semitism in the academy and the struggle of displaced scholars

Inga Zeisset on an engaging, beautiful and absorbing collection of tales

From Eva Perón's earthly remains to Taksim Square stray dogs and disability seen from the Left: academic titles worth adding to your reading list

A double biography of an Irish suffragette and a Polish count paints a vivid picture, says June Purvis

Flora Samuel on an architect’s thought-provoking examination of the design process

A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Book of the week: Two approaches to the Holocaust are blended in a pioneering historian’s last work, Neil Gregor writes

Danny Dorling on a study of predatory forces and questionable practices

Shelf life: The historian and author of Empire of Things on Karl May, Fernand Braudel, Elena Ferrante and the enduring pleasures of atlases and dictionaries

Organising and agitating online can be a powerful mover of change, Ivor Gaber finds

Tiffany Taylor on a thought-provoking view of the forces acting to ensure survival

A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Book of the week: An invisible force causes extinctions – science or sci-fi? Nature will decide, says Marcus Chown

Persian migrants’ tales illuminate the attitudes and culture of Regency era, says Shahidha Bari

We are sleepwalking towards virtual transparency after an oversharing binge, discovers Paul Bernal

Elizabeth Cobbs on an enlightening and alarming study of how the central state has had to fight for its legitimacy

From Soviet tanks on the streets of Hungary to the 30th birthday of a founding text of queer studies: academic books worth adding to your reading list

Joanna Williams on a controversial academic’s interpretation of where the boundaries lie

Scholarship, not ideology, drives this welcome effort to determine what is historical and what is not in the depiction of God, says Robert A. Segal

A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Book of the week: Tim Hall on post-Soviet criminal clans, diverse and complex groups to whom lawlessness is anathema

Egypt is route to exploring how modern politics privileges beliefs of majorities, finds Bård Kårtveit

Vladimir Tismaneanu on a study of one man’s journey from ‘Homo Sovieticus’ to ‘Homo Antisovieticus’

The author of Crunch Lit on Enid Blyton, the miners' strike, 'Marmite' books and her Pisa Pile of books waiting to be read

A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Simon Underdown relishes an engaging study of evolution that delights in breaking the fourth wall

Victoria Harris on a study of the occupied city that makes powerful use of diary entries

Book of the week: Economic instability is inevitable – what matters is our efforts to limit it, says Victoria Bateman of L. Randall Wray's latest book

Scholars and senior sector figures reveal their favourites – read for work, for pleasure, or both – of the titles published this year

People are less able to see and name natural elements of their surroundings, says Philip Hoare

There may be ideas for research here, but less in the way of practical lessons for busy managers, says Helga Drummond

The Pulitzer prizewinning novelist and academic on Robert Louis Stevenson, Piers the Plowman and buttered egg

A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

The real-life versions of Philip Marlowe were more likely criminals than heroes, says Sharon Wheeler

There are insights for scholars and law enforcement officials alike in this investigation of how the most lethal lone-wolf attack was planned, says Matthew Feldman

Book of the week: Jasmine Allen admires the monumental scale and meticulous detail of a stained glass artist’s work

Book of the week: A shared sense of precarity is at the heart of recent disparate mass protests, says Mary Evans

A weekly look over the shoulders of our scholar-reviewers

Was it beauty, race or rebelliousness that created a global icon? Joanna Lewis surveys the evidence

David Rosenthal on a Renaissance man who recorded in detail his obsession with the functional aesthetics his clothing and dress