A Portrait of the Brain
By Adam Zeman
Yale University Press £18.99, 256 pages
A neurologist describes lucidly the workings of the human brain and shows what happens when it goes wrong. A humane account illustrated with stories of Zeman’s own patients.

Blood Matters: A Journey Along the Genetic Frontier
By Masha Gessen
Granta £18.99, 320 pages
The best book so far about the emotional side of modern genetics. Gessen interweaves her own agonising – over whether to have her breasts and/or ovaries removed after testing positive for a cancer susceptibility gene – with reporting about how others have faced similar dilemmas.