Synopsis
Shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize.
A gripping investigation into an extraordinary medical phenomenon, from Wellcome Prize-winning neurologist Suzanne O’Sullivan.
'To compare any book to a Sacks is unfair, but this one lives up to it . . . I finished it feeling thrillingly unsettled, and wishing there was more.' – James McConnachie, Sunday Times
In Sweden, refugee children fall asleep...
Details
31 March 2022336 pages
9781529010572Imprint: Picador
Reviews
One of the most intriguing and provocative books of the yearIan Sample, Guardian Best Science Books of the Year
To compare any book to a Sacks is unfair, but this one lives up to it. Not because it is alluringly freakish, but because it is so compassionate, and so driven by deep curiosity about the human psyche. I finished it feeling thrillingly unsettled, and wishing there was more.James McConnachie, Sunday Times
O’Sullivan doesn’t offer easy answers. She just shows us, with wonderful compassion and the minimum of judgment, the ways in which people across the world have manifested symptoms that have helped them through – or beyond – painful situations . . . It is, in every sense, mind-blowing.Helen Brown, Daily Telegraph
O'Sullivan travels the world collecting fascinating stories of culture-bound syndromes, which she relays with nuance and sensitivity.Alice Robb, New Statesman
