The Book of Phobias and Manias

From the winner of the Edgar Award and the Samuel Johnson Prize, a cultural history of “everyday madness” The Book of Phobias and Manias is a thrilling compendium of 99 obsessions that have shaped us all, the rare and the familiar, from ablutophobia (a horror of washing) to syllogomania (a compulsion to hoard) to zoophobia (a fear of animals).   Phobias and manias are deeply personal experiences, and among the most common anxiety disorders of our time, but they are also clues to our shared