Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives - Softcover

Dillon, Brian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0141044055 ISBN 13: 9780141044057

Publisher: Penguin, 2010

Synopsis

'It's so good that, after reading it, I needed a lie-down' - Hilary Mantel, Guardian Books of the Year

Brian Dillon looks at nine prominent hypochondriacs - James Boswell, Charlotte Brontė, Charles Darwin, Florence Nightingale, Daniel Paul Schreber, Alice James, Marcel Proust, Glenn Gould and Andy Warhol - and what their lives tell us about the way the mind works with, and against, the body. His findings are stimulating and surprising, and the stories he tells are often moving, sometimes hilarious, and always gripping. With a new afterword on Michael Jackson.

Brian Dillon's first book, In the Dark Room, won the Irish Book Award for Non-fiction in 2006. He lives in Canterbury.

About this title

Review:

It's so good that, after reading it, I needed a lie-down. (Hilary Mantel Guardian Books of the Year)

A brilliant series of portraits (Observer)

Fascinating ... Written with great elegance and shrewd understanding (William Boyd Guardian Books of the Year)

Illuminating, humane and beautiful (Independent)

Ingenious and intriguing (Guardian)

Brian Dillon is a superbly careful writer. ... [This book] will delight, move and horrify any of the millions of us who, like the late Spike Milligan, have at one time or another contemplated having "I told you I was ill" inscribed on our gravestones. (Sam Leith Daily Mail)

A mini-masterpiece (Louise Carpenter Observer)

Excellent (Sunday Times)

Strangely delightful ... Dillon's book is constantly intelligent (Scotland on Sunday)

You don't need to be a hypochondriac to enjoy this series of discursive, insightful essays that are full of quirky details and fascinating anecdotes (Mail on Sunday)

From the Back Cover:

In Tormented Hope, Brian Dillon looks at nine prominent hypochondriacs - James Boswell, Charlotte Brontė, Charles Darwin, Florence Nightingale, Daniel Paul Schreber, Alice James, Marcel Proust, Glenn Gould and Andy Warhol - and what their lives tell us about the way the mind works with, and against, the body. His findings are stimulating and surprising, and the stories he tells are often moving, sometimes hilarious, and always gripping.

'Written with great elegance and shrewd understanding, it illuminates a condition that probably all of us will suffer from at some time in our lives' William Boyd, Guardian Books of the Year

'A mini-masterpiece' Observer

'Illuminating, humane and beautiful' Independent

'Ingenious and intriguing' Guardian

'His diagnosis of hypochondria both as the illness and the cure is beautifully argued' Frances Wilson, Sunday Times Books of the Year

Normal 0 0 1 15 72 1 1 109 11.1282 0 0 0 'Deeply engrossing ... There isn't a duff sentence here, or a misplaced word' New Statesman

Normal 0 0 1 46 216 3 1 328 11.1282 0 0 0 '[This book] will delight, move and horrify any of the millions of us who, like the late Spike Milligan, have at one time or another contemplated having "I told you I was ill" inscribed on our gravestones.' Sam Leith, Daily Mail

About this edition

• Publisher: Penguin
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 0141044055
• ISBN 13: 9780141044057
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 304