The Society of Timid Souls by Polly Morland – review

In an age of so many real and imagined terrors, can we learn to be brave? By Kathryn Hughes

What Do Women Want?: Adventures in the Science of Female Desire by Daniel Bergner – review

On prosmiscuity, porn, monogamy ... this study of female sexuality overturns some tenacious assumptions, writes Emma Brockes

Dan Brown, diets and Swedish fiction: what we’ve read so far in 2013

Liz Bury: Official sales figures of digital and print books for the first half of the year show a preoccupation with diets and thrillers

Is our love of nature writing bourgeois escapism?

We can't get enough of books about discovering yourself in the wilderness. What's it all about, asks Steven Poole

The Old Ways: a Journey on Foot by Robert Macfarlane – review

Nicholas Lezard's paperback of the week: In the final book in his trilogy about landscape and the human heart, Robert Macfarlane turns his attention to sacred encounters and wild walks

Semantic Polarities and Psychopathologies in the Family – review

It may have an unlovely title, but Tim Parks promises this rigorous book will offer you a liberating way of thinking about every family, including your own

The Anatomy of Violence by Adrian Raine – review

Do criminals have different brains? Do murderers have an unusually low pulse rate? By Raymond Tallis

The Norm Chronicles by Michael Blastland and David Spiegelhalter – digested read

John Crace reduces a book about the statistical probability of accidental death to a more manageable 600 words

One in four people have a mental illness – let’s get organised

Ruby Wax: Everyone who suffers any type of mental anguish should have a place to meet – a walk-in centre similar to Alcoholics Anonymous

Microlives: the key to living longer and more healthily?

A new book suggests a radical new way of assessing the health risks and benefits of everything from smoking to jogging. How does it work?

Why do identical twins end up having such different lives?

Their genes are exactly the same, so why don't identical siblings' lives follow more similar patterns? The scientist behind a pioneering 21-year study believes he has the answer, as he tells Robin McKie

The Ministry of Thin by Emma Woolf – review

Emma Woolf's study of our obsession with being thin should serve as a wake-up call to all women, writes Barbara Ellen

The Anatomy of Violence by Adrian Raine – review

An entertaining study of genetic disposition to crime poses challenging moral questions, says Salley Vickers

Be Awesome: Modern Life for Modern Ladies by Hadley Freeman – review

A confidence-boosting book for women under 40 has Miranda Sawyer crying out for the author to write a novel

Feral: Searching for Enchantment on the Frontiers of Rewilding by George Monbiot – review

George Monbiot's dream of a wilder Britain in which uplands would be cleared of sheep farming and populated with reintroduced species leaves Frances Stonor Saunders with a few questions