BOOK OF PHOBIAS AND MANIAS:

Do you recoil in arachnophobic horror with the sight of a spider, or twitch with monophobia when you misplace your mobile phone? We are all guilty of book buying habits which verge on bibliomania! Mired in indecision? Would it be reassuring to give this a name - aboulomania? A Book of the Year In The Times, Financial Times, Spectator and Daily Mail and as heard on BBC Radio 4 Woman's Hour and Start the Week, plunge into this rich, surprising and stunningly designed A-Z compendium. Discover how our fixations have taken shape from the Middle Ages to the present day as bestselling author Kate Summerscale deftly traces the threads between past and present, psychological and social, personal and political. Our phobias and manias are contradictory and multiple, deeply intimate, yet forged by the times we live in. It is the most common form of anxiety disorder, but rarely given a formal diagnosis. There are phobias for washing, of course flying and heights and open spaces, but also frogs, thunder, clowns, blushing, seaweed, being touched, buttons (Koumpounophobia), dentists, smells, eggs, choking, beards, hoarding, forests, zoophobia (animals) andmany more. Endlessly fascinating popular science. Line art of rats and mice and spiders decorate the 256 pages.