Science and nature
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Steven Johnson webchat – your questions answered on Trump, climate change and VRThe pop-science writer behind Everything Bad is Good for You and Wonderland came in to answer your questions, on everything from innovation in science and technology, to his thoughts on the Trump administration -
Eat Me: A Natural and Unnatural History of Cannibalism – reviewForget Silence of the Lambs: Bill Schutt’s book reveals the evolutionary reasons we may end up eating each other -
The Way We Die Now by Seamus O’Mahony review – a doctor’s viewA searingly honest, humane and challenging book to prompt a wider conversation about death and dying
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Elizabeth Blackburn on the telomere effect: ‘It’s about keeping healthier for longer’The Nobel winner says keeping telomeres – the ends of our chromosomes – in prime condition can stave off diseases associated with ageing
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Readers’ books of the year 2016The critics had their say, now it’s time for readers to pick their books of the year – from diaries to dictionaries and emperors to existentialists
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Stalin and the Scientists by Simon Ings review – a scientific state?In the USSR scientific research flourished, but disciplines such as genetics fell foul of political ideology
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The Attention Merchants review – how the web is being debased for profitTim Wu on a decades-long campaign to monetise attention which has reached new intensity in the Facebook age
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Hidden gems of 2016: the best books you may have missedFrom AJ Lees’s extraordinary memoir Mentored By a Madman to Fiona Melrose’s Midwinter and Julie Myerson’s chiller The Stopped Heart, our critics recommend the reads that slipped under the radar
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Best books of 2016 – part twoPaula Hawkins reflects on guilt, Jackie Kay seeks hope post-Brexit, and David Nicholls is lured into the lonely city … writers pick their best books of 2016
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Move over Freud: literary fiction is the best therapyFiction breaks down social isolation and creates a sense of belonging, argues the author and former psychoanalyst
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Four Futures: Life After Capitalism review – will robots bring utopia or terror?Peter Frase’s roaming, thoughtful work of ‘social science fiction’ sketches out a frightening future of rich v poor
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Royal Society's young people's prize goes to 'well cool' pop-up bookHow Machines Work by David Macaulay is praised by school-age judges for story of the mechanics used by a sloth to escape his zoo
Nicholas Lezard's choice The Story of Pain by Joanna Bourke review – from prayer to painkillers