Reviews

Vite di nove ipocondriaci eccellenti by Brian Dillon

sarah_tellesbo's review against another edition

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4.0

Interesting, well written, hits very close to home.

smm231's review against another edition

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3.0

Author's voice is a little odd, maybe too literary or aggressively "artistic" for what's more or less a biography, but it seems to work pretty well. Your enjoyment of individual chapters will probably relate to what you think of the person being profiled. I'm a big Brontë fan, so I liked that one, but can't stand Boswell, so that chapter mostly annoyed me.

unionmack's review against another edition

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3.0

As a devoted hypochondriac myself, I came into this book hoping to find a bit of me in far more impressive people. In some cases, I'd say the author delivered on that promise. In others though, I feel like he conflated hypochondria with genuine sickness or mental illness to the point that the ailment lost any distinctive meaning. It never veers so far off track that his stories seem totally shoehorned in, but there were plenty of times where I was thinking, "Can you really be considered a hypochondriac if you're *actually* this sick?" Regardless, I still had a lot of fun reading this even if it wasn't the most substantive or engaging book ever. The sections on the Schreber case and Glenn Gould were probably my favorites. No need to rush to read this one but, if you also have a talent at spinning everything from a slight ache in the chest to a twitch of the eye into cancer or ALS, this book will remind you you're at least in decent company.
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