'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 Brontë, 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.

Tormented Hope: Nine Hypochondriac Lives

Biographies & Memoirs

Brian, Dillon

Historical

Penguin Ireland

The Hypochondriacs Lib/E: Nine Tormented Lives

Charlotte Bronte found in her illnesses, real and imaginary, an escape from familial and social duties and the perfect conditions for writing. The German jurist Daniel Paul Schreber believed his body was being colonized and transformed at the hand of God and doctors alike. Andy Warhol was terrified by disease and by the idea of disease. Glenn Gould claimed a friendly pat on his shoulder had destroyed his ability to play piano. And we all know someone who has, in solitude, trawled the Internet seeking to pinpoint the source of his or her fantastical symptoms. The Hypochondriacs is a book about mind and body, fear and hope, illness and imagination, despair and creativity. It explores, in the stories of nine individuals, the relationship between mind and body as it is mediated by the experience, or simply the terror, of being ill. And in an intimate investigation of those nine lives, it shows how the mind can make a prison of the body by distorting our sense of ourselves as physical beings. Through witty, entertaining, and often moving examinations of the lives of nine eminent hypochondriacs -- James Boswell, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Darwin, Florence Nightingale, Daniel Paul Schreber, Marcel Proust, Alice James, Glenn Gould, and Andy Warhol -- Brian Dillon brilliantly unravels the tortuous connections between real and imagined illness, irrational fear and rational concern, the mind s aches and the body's ideas.

The Hypochondriacs: Nine Tormented Lives (Library Edition)

Health, Fitness & Dieting

Blackstone Audio,Inc.

Charlotte Bronte found in her illnesses, real and imaginary, an escape from familial and social duties and the perfect conditions for writing. The German jurist Daniel Paul Schreber believed his body was being colonized and transformed at the hand of God and doctors alike. Andy Warhol was terrified by disease and by the idea of disease. Glenn Gould claimed a friendly pat on his shoulder had destroyed his ability to play piano. And we all know someone who has, in solitude, trawled the Internet seeking to pinpoint the source of his or her fantastical symptoms.  The Hypochondriacs is a book about mind and body, fear and hope, illness and imagination, despair and creativity. It explores, in the stories of nine individuals, the relationship between mind and body as it is mediated by the experience, or simply the terror, of being ill. And in an intimate investigation of those nine lives, it shows how the mind can make a prison of the body by distorting our sense of ourselves as physical beings. Through witty, entertaining, and often moving examinations of the lives of nine eminent hypochondriacs -- James Boswell, Charlotte Bronte, Charles Darwin, Florence Nightingale, Daniel Paul Schreber, Marcel Proust, Alice James, Glenn Gould, and Andy Warhol -- Brian Dillon brilliantly unravels the tortuous connections between real and imagined illness, irrational fear and rational concern, the mind s aches and the body's ideas.

Professionals & Academics

Blackstone Publishing

Boldly combining the highly personal with the brilliantly scholarly, In the Dark Room explores the question of how memory works emotionally and culturally. It is narrated through the prism of the author's experience of losing both his parents his mother when he was sixteen, his father when he was on the cusp of adulthood and of trying, after a breakdown some years later, to piece things together. Drawing on the lessons of centuries of literature, philosophy and visual art, Dillon interprets the relics of his parents and of his childhood in a singularly original and arresting piece of writing.

In the Dark Room: A Journey in Memory

Parenting & Relationships

Boldly combining the highly personal with the brilliantly scholarly, "In the Dark Room" explores the question of how memory works emotionally and culturally. It is narrated through the prism of the author's experience of losing both his parents, his mother when he was sixteen, his father when he was on the cusp of adulthood and of trying, after a breakdown some years later, to piece things together. Drawing on the lessons of centuries of literature, philosophy and visual art, Dillon interprets the relics of his parents and of his childhood in a singularly original and arresting piece of writing.

In the Dark Room: a Journey in Memory

Penguin??Books

Tormented hope: nine hypochondriac lives

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Brian, Dillon. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.