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Les Gofton admires an ethnographic study exploring how workers escape the daily grind

Jonathan Mirsky on one family’s memories of life in a Shanghai alleyway, from Mao to the modern day

It’s not machines but rather man that makes us dread the clock’s tick, Stina Lyon discovers

E. Stina Lyon on the unrealistically high expectations placed on women

A thoughtful study on joblessness has little to say on the most pressing problems, finds Kitty Stewart

Emma Rees on the difficulties of defining and exploring women’s sexual subjectivities in the 21st century

Clare Griffiths on a fresh perspective of social and public history through the author’s personal investigation of her own genealogy

An examination of our bathroom habits is a little…constipated, finds Peter J. Smith

Helen Keegan on a compelling account of the potential harms from intended and unintended self-disclosure

Steve Redhead on a discussion of play as a means of interacting with the world around us

Now in his ninth decade, sociologist Howard Becker has produced a classic, writes Les Gofton

E. Stina Lyon admires a hybrid of personal memoir and post-war English social history

Jonathan Mirsky on the unfairness and exploitation rife in modern Chinese society

Lynne Segal on an Israeli scholar’s persuasive arguments against his country’s myths of identity

Dick Hobbs on an ethnographic study exploring the resilience of youths whose lives have been marred by violence

Sarah Hackett on a timely study that merits a place at the heart of current policy debates

Sally R. Munt lauds an ethnographic study of men who are ‘out’ about their weight

Joy Hendry hopes for insights that look beyond stereotypes in this study of a nation in flux

Sharon Wheeler on an ambitious investigation of crime fiction and its relation to modern society

An enjoyable assortment of media hoaxes that would benefit from some theoretical analysis, says Chris Knight

Caroline Osella on the causes behind the astonishingly high rate of suicide in the southwestern Indian state of Kerala

Clare Griffiths appraises a century of untold tales about life on the bottom rung of the social ladder

Rachel Condry extols an analysis that draws upon survey data and interviews to ask vital questions about the hidden victims of parental incarceration

Annabel Tremlett lauds an exploration of the experiences of Travellers in Europe and their cultural contributions

Uta Papan on an exploration of pregnancy texts

Tara Brabazon on an attempt to capture and express the voice of young people

Dick Hobbs on how the intense nature of policing creates secondary casualties in poor communities

A good grasp of basic statistics will help us to make the right life choices, finds Omar Malik

Les Gofton on the application of the punk ethos to studying sociology

Deborah Rogers on the Tiger Mother’s new polemic

The conflict takes a backseat to questions about the state of ideological and cultural thinking, says Angela K. Smith

Shattering stereotypes starts with sharing everyday experiences, suggests Annabel Tremlett

Athene Donald agrees that scientists, although not infallible, do know better about some things

Discussion of underground and emergent queer cultures are interesting, but Caroline Osella wishes for more insight from a respected scholar

Silicon Valley’s stars ceaselessly shape their image to a neoliberal ideal, Finola Kerrigan discovers

Anna Hickey-Moody on study of how performers have addressed disability in their compositions and performances

Angelia Wilson hopes for a turn against therapy and towards political engagement in the US

Omar Malik concurs with the considered advice on decision-making but seeks more understanding about the process

Alison Oram on changing attitudes to sexual perversions

Michael Patrick Cullinane on the military-academic complex

Les Gofton on ‘world families’ and globalisation

Stina Lyon ponders life’s many shades of grey

Dick Hobbs finds low-life tales of illegal entrepreneurs in abundance, but not so scholarly rigour

Marian Duggan takes a tour of the US LGBT liberation movement

Joanna Bourke on a meticulous analysis of the responses of civil rights movements to sexual violence against women and girls

Small towns were often accommodating to those without a straight sensibility, finds Sally R. Munt

Cheryl Buckley considers our changing relationships with clothes and fashion as we grow older

Vicky Conway on the corrosive effect of unchecked power

Stina Lyon on the personal and emotional costs of a global marketplace where everything’s for sale

James Stevens Curl enjoys the wry company of a kindred spirit

Joanna Bourke on a harrowing look at the darkness in human hearts

Tim Birkhead on bird fanciers’ engagement with nature

Laura Piacentini ponders the power of the penal system to destroy a prisoner’s sense of self

Jelena Obradovic-Wochnik on a study of the process of researching the Bosnian wars

Matthew Feldman on the expanding threat to society from unpredictable individuals

Jyothsna Latha Belliappa on technology’s transformative effects

James T. Crouse on a book that should be on every politician’s reading list

Mary Evans discusses moral panic and girls’ sexualisation

John Brewer reviews a book that focuses on the spiritual motivations of peacemakers in the Middle East