The Book of Phobias and Manias

A History of the World in 99 Obsessions

Kate Summerscale

$32.99

Paperback

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English

Profile
01 October 2022

Psychology; Social, group or collective psychology; Psychology: emotions; History of medicine; History of science; Popular science

Ever been struck dumb when speaking in public? You might be suffering from glossophobia. Do your book-buying habits verge on bibliomania? Do you recoil in arachnophobic horror at the sight of a spider - or twitch with nomophobia when you misplace your mobile phone?

Our fears and compulsions often feel like part of our deepest selves - yet they're bound up in the currents of the world around us. This thrilling compendium of 99 phobias and manias, rare and familiar, delves into the obsessions that shape us all. Award-winning author Kate Summerscale takes us from the Middle Ages to the present day, using rich and riveting case studies to trace the links between the private and the public, the personal and the political.

By: Kate Summerscale
Imprint: Profile
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Edition: Export
Dimensions: Height: 214mm, Width: 136mm, Spine: 28mm
Weight: 314g
ISBN: 9781800813359
ISBN 10: 180081335X
Pages: 256
Publication Date: 01 October 2022
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , General/trade , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Paperback
Publisher's Status: Active

Kate Summerscale is the author of the number one bestselling The Suspicions of Mr Whicher, winner of the Samuel Johnson Prize for Non-Fiction 2008, winner of the Galaxy British Book of the Year Award, a Richard & Judy Book Club pick and adapted into a major ITV drama. Her debut, The Queen of Whale Cay, won a Somerset Maugham award and was shortlisted for the Whitbread biography award. The Wicked Boy, published in 2016, won the Mystery Writers of America Edgar Award for Best Fact Crime. Her latest book, The Haunting of Alma Fielding, was shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize for Non-Fiction. She lives in north London.

Reviews for The Book of Phobias and Manias: A History of the World in 99 Obsessions

Praise for Kate Summerscale: Summerscale's brilliance lies not only in recognising the power of a particular story, but in charting, with beautiful precision, its strange echoes and reverberations -- Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday * Simply superb -- Alexandra Harris * Guardian * Extraordinary -- Phillipa Gregory * Daily Telegraph * As good as non-fiction could possibly get -- Victoria Hislop * Daily Mail * Mesmerising -- Boyd Tonkin * Independent * Summerscale is an exquisite storyteller. She is judicious in her use of detail, subtle in her unspoken connections between the past and the present... -- Daisy Goodwin * The Times * Her research is needle-sharp and her period detail richly atmospheric -- John Carey * Sunday Times *