Et cetera: non-fiction roundup – reviews

Dignity by Michael Rosen, The Shrink and the Sage by Julian Baggini and Antonia Macaro and iDisorder by Larry D Rosen, with Nancy A Cheever and L Mark Carrier

Nights Out by Judith R Walkowitz – review

Matthew Sweet explores a demi-monde that's all but vanished

Kensal Rise library campaigners gain another day

Brent council backs off from emptying shelves, as protesters complain offer to run service with volunteers was ignored

Campaigners block council’s efforts to remove books from Kensal Rise library

Protesters gather outside 111-year-old library, which has been closed down by Brent council

Using the tools of science to improve social policy

When drugs are launched, we expect rigorous testing, so why don't we use science to help determine government policies, asks Mark Henderson

Where there’s muck there’s a class

Nick Duerden recalls his first – and best – school trip to a farm run by writer Michael Morpurgo and his wife, Clare, who have given thousands of inner-city children a taste of nature since the 1970s

Et cetera: non-fiction roundup – reviews

The Great Accelerator by Paul Virilio, Sparrow by Kim Todd and The Power of Habit by Charles Duhigg

Memoirs of an Addicted Brain by Marc Lewis – review

David Shariatmadari is both fascinated and irritated by an addict turned neuroscientist

My 1960s wasn’t all sex, drugs and rock’n'roll – and I suspect I’m not alone

Ian Jack: For a lot of people, today's dominant narrative about the 1960s and the baby-boomer generation does not ring true

Seasons in the Sun by Dominic Sandbrook – review

David Edgar challenges an entertaining analysis of a decade of great change

Mrs Robinson’s Disgrace by Kate Summerscale – review

Alexandra Harris is engrossed by a landmark divorce case in a fine cultural history

Maurice Sendak’s dark visions delighted generations of children

The author who won fame with the brilliant but unsettling Where the Wild Things Are refused to patronise his young readers

Rachel Joyce and Michael Richmond – two great new writers I urge you to read

Deborah Orr: These two first novels about depression are very different, but oddly complementary, and provide a rich education in our human emotional battleground

Going Solo by Eric Klinenberg – review

If we can afford to live alone, we do, discovers Kathryn Hughes

Belle de Jour v Julie Bindel

Brooke Magnanti has swapped her call girl blog for an academic study of the sex industry. I disagree with just about everything she has to say

Digested read: Fifty Shades of Grey by EL James

Who could resist a thrashing from such a gorgeous and enigmatic man? Not my inner goddess, that's for sure

Rewind radio: Drunk Again: Ann Widdecombe Investigates; Sunday Feature: AL Kennedy’s Art of Madness; The Radio Ballads: Never Again – A Lament for the Titanic – review

Ann Widdecombe learned little from a night out on the town, while AL Kennedy plumbed the depths of despair indoors, writes Miranda Sawyer

Opium: Reality’s Dark Dream by Thomas Dormandy – review

A deft history of opium spans the personal and the political, writes John Gallagher

The New Few: Or a Very British Oligarchy by Ferdinand Mount – review

Ferdinand Mount's mild views on banks and bonuses count as a radical position these days, writes Andrew Anthony

Cuckoo in the Nest: 28 and Back with Mum and Dad by Nat Luurtsema – review

Nat Luurtsema's memoir manages to wring comedy from an unfortunate modern phenomenon, writes Rebecca Seal

The New Few, or A Very British Oligarchy

Ferdinand Mount asks why the gap between rich and poor is growing, why political parties are hollowed-out shells, and who is to blame

Abhijit Banerjee: ‘The poor, probably rightly, see that their chances of getting somewhere different are minimal’

The author of Poor Economics on why aid that assumes the poor will do the right thing is misguided – and why political corruption does not necessarily mean economic stagnation

The Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt – review

A compelling study of the morality of those on the left and right reaches some surprising conclusions, writes Ian Birrell

Lord Ashley of Stoke obituary

Labour politician who made his deafness no obstacle to his tireless championing of disadvantaged people

Imagine: How Creativity Works by Jonah Lehrer – review

Steven Poole challenges a self-regarding how-to guide

Irvine Welsh: ‘I’m the same kind of writer as I am a drinker. I’m a binger’

The Trainspotting author has returned to Renton, Sick Boy and Begbie with Skagboys, a prequel to his best-selling debut novel. He explains why he continues to explore those 'dark places'

Mid Century Ads: Advertising from the Mad Men Era by Jim Heimann and Steven Heller – review

Babies selling cigarettes? Jim Heimann and Steven Heller's glossy tome gives us a fascinating look at marketing in the 50s and 60s

The Penge Mystery: the murder of Harriet Staunton

In 1877, Harriet Staunton's husband and three others were accused of starving her to death and lurid newspaper reports of the Penge murder trial held the nation's rapt attention. A bestselling novel about the affair – written in 1934 and now republished – proves as gripping today

The Sex Myth: Why Everything We’re Told is Wrong by Brooke Magnanti – review

The left and right are both to blame for the lies surrounding sex, writes Catherine Hakim

Et cetera: non-fiction reviews roundup

The No-Nonsense Guide to Equality by Danny Dorling, Correspondence: Max Frisch & Friedrich Dürrenmatt and How to Take Care of Your Clothes by Claire Leavey