The Emperor of All Maladies: A Biography of Cancer by Siddhartha Mukherjee – review

This magnificent study of cancer suggests that, for all medicine's advances, we cannot beat a disease that is a distorted version of ourselves, says Alexander Linklater

Your Voice in My Head by Emma Forrest — review

Emma Forrest's account of mental illness is frank and frequently funny but bears the scars of self-obsession, writes Julie Myerson

Poser: My Life in Twenty-Three Yoga Poses by Claire Dederer

Carrie O'Grady welcomes a yoga book by a mother who wasn't very good at it

Help!: How to Become Slightly Happier and Get a Bit More Done by Oliver Burkeman

Nicholas Lezard on the self-help book to end all self-help books

A hugger or a tiger mother: battle of the baby-rearing strategies

A series of new books is likely to open up fresh controversy about the way we bring up our children; some demanding strict, regimented parenting, others a more laid-back approach

Et cetera: Steven Poole’s non-fiction choice – reviews roundup

Disconnect by Devra Davis, Blogistan: The Internet and Politics in Iran by Annabelle Sreberny & Gholam Khiabany and Enter Night: Metallica, the Biography by Mick Wall

Guardian first book award: Kathryn Schulz

In the fifth and final Q&A with the shortlisted authors, Kathryn Schulz discusses her book on human error, Being Wrong

Delusions of Gender: The Real Science Behind Sex Differences by Cordelia Fine

Terri Apter wishes that a study of genes and gender had gone further

Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

Millions of women have fallen for Elizabeth Gilbert's memoir of self-discovery. Why, asks Rachel Cusk, as Eat, Pray, Love opens as a Julia Roberts blockbuster

Being Wrong: Adventures in the Margin of Error by Kathryn Schulz

The mind's capacity for error can be astounding, says Rafael Behr

Guardian first book award longlist ranges around the world

Ten titles contend for £10,000 award, with subjects covered including everything from the itinerant experience of the Somali community to Churchill's 'black dog'

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