Editor's Picks (Books)

A good grasp of basic statistics will help us to make the right life choices, finds Omar Malik

Elena Lombardi lauds a persuasive invitation to everyone yet to be beguiled by the Divine Comedy

New data enrich an account of the activists who refused to be counted in 1911, says June Purvis

Laurence Coupe admires scholarly insights of a kind the REF could never hope to measure

What will we need to know to reboot civilisation after the apocalypse?, asks Alison Stokes

Ascertaining the truth behind events is what matters, says Robert Gellately, not hypotheticals

Richard Williams on architectural criticism and how its narrowness affects our built landscape

Shahidha Bari delights in a lucid and graceful philosophical probing of self-consciousness

Virginia Doellgast finds workers pay dearly when big firms devolve oversight of pay and conditions

Athene Donald agrees that scientists, although not infallible, do know better about some things

Our use of housing as an asset to be traded is a collective failure that is preserving inequality, finds Tim Hall

Michelle Baddeley on an exploration of what makes us tick

Silicon Valley’s stars ceaselessly shape their image to a neoliberal ideal, Finola Kerrigan discovers

Post-war history from East and West perspectives creates vivid impressions for Roger Morgan

Beset by turmoil, an inimitable critic wrote as if from the future. Joanna Hodge on a material force

David Toop is charmed by an exploration of the pains and pleasures of the noises around us

Is utilitarianism the best way to resolve disputes in the global village? Natalie Gold investigates

Sarah Semple on the ritual and romance of this island story’s early chapters

A thread of celebrity weaves through a masterful study of cults of Christian icons, Helen Fulton finds

Susan Deacy on true immortality

A. W. Purdue on the risky belief that participatory government can always muddle through any crisis

Les Gofton on ‘world families’ and globalisation

Stina Lyon ponders life’s many shades of grey

Conor Gearty on an impassioned attack on ‘imperialism disguised as moralism’

Geraldine Van Bueren lauds a plea to put our passions to work in building a more just society

Kitty Stewart finds wisdom in a study of progress and disparity between nations and people

Roger Morgan on the reasons why so much blood was shed

Sandra Leaton Gray on healthier options for e-junkies

A. W. Purdue on the leader who saw the nuclear future but let it slip

Marianne Elliott on the bloody foundation of a modern state

Robert Eaglestone lauds what will become a standard work in literary criticism

Jill Stephenson praises a study of terror from the skies

Victoria Bateman counts the costs when there’s not enough to go around

Stina Lyon on the personal and emotional costs of a global marketplace where everything’s for sale

Hugh Adlington gains a greater appreciation of one of England’s greatest devotional poets

Annmarie Adams on one man’s quest to find places where form meets libido

Shahidha Bari welcomes a thoughtful look at ordinary anatomy and extraordinary anxiety

Hilary Hinds praises an account of the social shifts discerned in small ads, smooching and soulmates

Graham Farmelo on a scientific giant’s debt to his wife

Gary Day delights in a critique that sweeps aside the perceived gulf between ‘high’ and ‘low’ culture

Roger Morgan on how a liberal doyen blackballed a Red rival

Bryony Randall lauds an insightful and overdue study of literary representations of parenting

A powerful critique of neoclassical economics raises profound questions for all, says Christopher Phelps

Valerie Sanders relishes this considered study of a quietly worthy class of men

Jules Pretty explores the oceans that haunt our imaginations

Alex Danchev applauds a study of one of the 20th century’s greatest thinker-painters

The interwoven tale of the fight over rubber and a visionary surveyor captivates Robert Mayhew

Joanna Bourke reflects on torturers, murderers and the paradoxes of portraying suffering and trauma

Fiona Reid on the military life’s inherent brutality

Unsolicited emails can be a costly nuisance, says John Gilbey

Michelle Harvey agrees with inspiring advice to young science researchers to never forget what initially attracted them to the discipline

Robert Eaglestone extols a great historian’s insights into a great and disquieting writer

Sheila Rowbotham on a crisp portrait of a restless thinker who was neither infallible nor prophetic

Lucy Wooding discusses a fresh examination of fervent belief

Roger Morgan on a great historian’s last essays that illuminate an era of social and artistic change

Ervand Abrahamian ponders how Muslim clerics seized and retained control of modern-day Persia

Shahidha Bari considers an exploration of desire and denial amid Egypt’s shifting sands

Tara Brabazon on the hypocrisy of digital utopianism

David Green on the risks and rewards of medical progress

Vladimir Tismaneanu discusses the revolutionary ambitions of the USSR’s great tyrant