About

I’m a writer and a podcaster. I write non-fiction books about the world and how we live in it — The Way to the Sea (2019) and A Body Made of Glass. I make a podcast about detective fiction called Shedunnit, I curate articles for The Browser, and I write reviews and essays for publications like Granta, the New Humanist, the Guardian and the Spectator. Find recent interviews with me here and see my upcoming events here. The best way to stay in touch with me and my work is to subscribe to my newsletter, No Complaints.

If you’d like to talk about working together, get in touch — my contact details are here. I do read all the messages I get, but sometimes I can’t get back to everybody. My agent in the UK is Sophie Lambert at C&W and my agent in the US is Amelia Atlas at ICM Partners. Portrait by Jamie Drew.

Latest book

My next book, A Body Made of Glass, is published in the UK and the US in April 2024. It is available to order now at all major booksellers. For those who pre-order the book, I’m offering a special bonus ebook with more on my personal story and further reading tips — you can register for that here. I’m also doing events, both in person and online, the details of which you can find out about here.

Part cultural history, part literary criticism, and part memoir, A Body Made of Glass is adefinitive biography of hypochondria. It weaves together history, memoir, and literary criticism to make sense of this invisible and undercovered sickness. From the earliest medical case of Hippocrates to the literary accounts of sufferers like Virginia Woolf and Marcel Proust to the modern perils of internet self-diagnosis, the book unspools this topic to reveal the far-reaching impact of health anxiety on our physical, mental, and emotional health.

The book has received some wonderful prereviews and endorsements:

“Essential reading for everyone who has a body. And yes — that means every single reader in the world” — Lucy Worsley, BBC presenter and author of Agatha Christie

“A masterful and very readable account of the history of hypochondria as a concept in human history… It is a profound work, especially when the author weaves in her own story of illness anxiety and trauma. I loved this book and read it at a sitting” — Dr Gwen Adshead, author of The Devil You Know

“Humane, thoughtful, and unsettling. The best book I’ve read in ages” — Cal Flyn, author of Islands of Abandonment

“Deeply researched, subtly argued… written with elegance and flashes of humour” — Sunday Times

“Fascinating and intelligent” — Observer

“A brilliant personal exploration of health anxiety… Lucid, broad in scope, full of nuanced reflection” — Guardian

“Poetic and personal, this book reveals a condition that is debilitating and often hidden” — Kirkus Reviews

“A riveting, genre-bending memoir” — Publishers Weekly

“A truly fascinating foray into the theories, origins, history, and treatment of a too-often maligned disorder that cries out for less judgment and more empathy” — Booklist, starred review

Learn more…

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- A Body Made of Glass
- The Way to the Sea
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