A01=Caroline Crampton
Age Group_Uncategorized
Age Group_Uncategorized
Author_Caroline Crampton
automatic-update
bbc radio 4 book of the week
best medical memoirs
brain on fire
Category1=Non-Fiction
Category=BM
Category=DNC
Category=MBNH9
Category=MBX
Category=VFD
COP=United Kingdom
Delivery_Delivery within 10-20 working days
eq_bestseller
eq_biography-true-stories
eq_health-lifestyle
eq_isMigrated=2
eq_nobargain
eq_non-fiction
health anxiety
how to deal with hypochondria
hysteria
it's all in your head
Language_English
PA=Available
Price_€10 to €20
PS=Active
softlaunch
susannah cahalan
suzanne o'sullivan
the emperor of all maladies
the sleeping beauties
women's health
Product details
- ISBN 9781783789054
- Weight: 445g
- Dimensions: 144 x 223mm
- Publication Date: 11 Apr 2024
- Publisher: Granta Books
- Publication City/Country: GB
- Product Form: Hardback
- Language: English
Secure
checkout
Fast Shipping
Easy returns
A BBC RADIO 4 BOOK OF THE WEEK
A fascinating and revelatory cultural history of hypochondria, from Hippocrates to wellness influencers
"There is a twilight zone between illness and health, and that's where I dwell"
An ache, a pain, a mysterious lump, a strange sensation in some part of your body, the feeling that something is not right. The fear that something is, in fact, very wrong. These could be symptoms of illness. But they could also be the symptoms of hypochondria - an enigmatic condition that might be physiological or psychological or both.
In this landmark book, Caroline Crampton tells the story of hypochondria, beginning in the age of Hippocrates and taking us right through to the wellness industry today. Along the way, we encounter successive generations of doctors positing new theories, as well as quacks selling spurious cure-alls to the desperate. And we meet those who have suffered with conditions both real and imagined, including Moliere, Darwin, Woolf, Freud, Larkin, and Proust whose symptoms and sensitivities gradually narrowed his life to the space of his cork-lined bedroom. Crampton also examines the gendered nature of the medical response, the financial and social factors at play, and the ways in which modern technology simultaneously feeds our fears and holds out the promise of relief.
Drawing on Crampton's own experience of surviving a life-threatening disease only to find herself beset by almost constant anxiety about her health, A Body Made of Glass explores part of the landscape of illness that most memoirs don't reach: the territory beyond survival or cure, where body and mind seem locked in a strange and exhausting kind of dance. The result is both a fascinating cultural history of hypochondria and a moving account of what it means to live with this invisible, elusive and increasingly wide-spread condition.
CAROLINE CRAMPTON is an author and podcaster who writes about the world and how we live in it. She worked in journalism at publications like the New Statesman and The Times before focusing on literary non-fiction. Her first book, The Way to the Sea: The Forgotten Histories of the Thames Estuary (Granta, 2019), was described by critics "as elegant and sinuous as the river" and "wise, fascinating and informative". Her new book is A Body Made of Glass: A History of Hypochondria (Granta, 2024). Her award-winning podcast about golden age detective fiction, Shedunnit, is distributed by BBC Sounds. As a broadcaster, she has appeared on BBC Two, Sky News, BBC Radio 2 and BBC Radio 4 and her reviews have been published by the Guardian, London Review of Books and Spectator.
