“Time is an illusion,” wrote Douglas Adams. “Lunchtime, doubly so.” It is certainly a subjective experience, agrees the psychologist and author Marc Wittmann—as any drug user or meditation expert can tell you. Here he picks five books that unpick our perception of the passage of time.

What creates flavour? Our sensory environment, our knowledge, or the existing qualities of what we eat? The philosopher explores the best five books on taste.

Hume had a message he wanted to get out — particularly as regards skepticism about religion — but he was no proto-Richard Dawkins, says Cambridge philosopher, Simon Blackburn. He chooses the best books on (or by) David Hume.

What is consciousness? Can we measure it? Cognitive neuroscientist David Carmel introduces some of the philosophical and scientific complexities of identifying what was formerly known as the ‘soul.’