Tourists flock to Pere-Lachaise to seek out the graves of celebrated figures such as Marcel Proust, Colette, Jim Morrison and Maria Callas. I once saw a shiny pink granite tombstone there for a man who had not yet died. Yet there is so much more to this famous Parisian cemetery than its monumental public face. As the curator of the cemetery who lives with his family on the grounds, Benoit Gallot is privy to another side of the cemetery, which is as much about life as it is about death. Since 2011, when the Paris City Council forbade the use of pesticides, wild plants and animals have returned, creating havens of biodiversity. Gallot writes eloquently of how these environments have become refuges for all sorts of creatures - foxes, hedgehogs, owls, insects - not to mention that diverse array of humans that frequent the place. The "Perelachaisians" or retired enthusiasts, the flaneurs, the epitaph aficionados, the cat ladies, the lovers, the artists and the exhibitionists. A delightful and strangely uplifting work.

We will always be in the thick of things but there are, Rebecca Solnit reminds us, ways of getting perspective on the overwhelming events of the immediate moment, particularly through the long view afforded by history. While she is too nuanced a writer to peddle simple strategies, these essays are about how to maintain hope in the face of climate change, war and despotism. "The present looks incomprehensible only to those who ignore the past." By remembering how social change - the abolition of slavery, women's rights, Indigenous rights - came about in increments in the face of powerful opposition, we give ourselves space to be with uncertainty without despairing. This perspective can also be found in the stories we have told ourselves over the millennia, such as fairytales. The main characters are "given tasks that are often unfair verging on impossible" and yet they prevail through alliances, persistence, resistance and innovation. Solnit's well-turned aphorisms provide a much-needed antidote to fatalism and paralysis.

It was the 1980s and the internet had just begun. Tim Berners-Lee was working as a computer coder when it struck him that information was meaningless in isolation. Traditionally, hierarchical structures quarantined knowledge. To liberate the potential of the internet, he realised, you needed to allow new and unexpected relationships between pieces of information to flourish. "To do that, you had to let the users make those connections." Out of this lightbulb moment came the World Wide Web. Unlike his contemporaries Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, Berners-Lee did not seek to capitalise on this invention. He wanted it to be for everyone. By 1990, he had it up and running but he was the only one using it. Two years later, it was getting a million hits a day. Berners-Lee's practical idealism is such a refreshing change from the usual self-celebratory bunk often found in memoirs of this kind.

Amanda Goff had never given her breasts much thought until a boorish drunk guy in a pub told her she was ugly and that she should "Grow some f...ing tits." The sledge took root and in the years that followed she went under the knife six times until her breasts were "bloody ginormous". Then it finally hit her that she had "made my boobs define me". This book about breasts aims to reclaim breasts, "not as symbols imposed by others but as aspects of identity that we define for ourselves". But as Goff's story reveals, disentangling what you think you really want from what society tells you should aspire to isn't that straightforward. On the one hand, the authors offer a strong critique of the way porn fetishises fake breasts and reduces women to mere objects of desire. On the other, they insist on the freedom to embrace this objectification if a woman so chooses. Which would seem to be a capitulation to the social pressures the authors want to critique. A lot of mixed messages here.