Best health books of 2019

The human body, a miracle of spontaneous self-assembly, is the perfect vehicle for Bryson’s trademark humour and factsharing compulsion (if you laid the DNA code in your body end to end, it would stretch beyond the known planets). There is grit as well as wit: he tackles tricky health issues such as the global variation in life expectancy, medical insurance and obesity.

Extra Time: 10 Lessons for an Ageing World, by Camilla Cavendish, HarperCollins

Affluent countries are ageing rapidly, due to falling birth rates and rising longevity. Cavendish, an Financial Times columnist and former No 10 policy adviser, briskly lays out the implications for governments and societies, from childbearing incentives to extended working lives. Progressive social care models, elder-care robots and anti-ageing medicine also get a look-in.

What Dementia Teaches Us About Love, by Nicci Gerrard, Allen Lane

There are 850,000 people in the

UK with dementia: as countries age, their citizens all know someone who has it or is at risk. For Gerrard it was her beloved father; she describes his decline as the “great unravelling”. Published

as The Last Ocean in the US, this is a profound and powerful exploration of how society interprets and deals with a health challenge that will only deepen in the coming decades.

The Pandemic Century: One Hundred Years of Panic, Hysteria and Hubris, by Mark Honigsbaum, Hurst

Perfect for the flu season. Honigsbaum, a medical historian, provides a macabre rundown of pandemics, from ebola to the Spanish flu that killed 50-million. History shows pathogens will always exploit new ecological niches, as we will no doubt discover anew in 2020.

Time and How to Spend It: The 7 Rules for Richer, Happier Days, by James

Wallman, WH Allen

The average Briton has more than five hours of spare time a day. Why does it feel like so much less? Because we spend too much of it alone, online and indoors. The author of Stuffocation trawls through research to show how to make better use of this diminishing resource, by choosing transformative experiences. /Anjana Ahuja /© The Financial Times 2019