Encyclopedia Neurotica - Softcover

Our modern Age of Anxiety threatens to overwhelm us all with angst, ambivalence, and dread. Most of us manage to cope, but not without displaying some pretty bizarre behavior. Enter Encyclopedia Neurotica, an irreverent A to Z guide to the tics, twitches, and safety-valve nuttiness of modern life.

Learn about such fascinating foibles as retail therapy, "shopping as a means of comfort, relaxation, or mood elevation," or cell yell, "loud talking on cell phones in public places by people with a neurotic need to invade their own privacy." Find out whether you suffer from cyberchondria, "hypochondria resulting from seeing one's symptoms on a medical Web site," or pronoia, "the irrational belief that people like you."

From a master of witty compilations, this wry catalog of mishegoss, containing hundreds of illustrative quotations from the famous and the wise, may convince you to lie back and enjoy your neuroses. Or congratulate yourself on not being quite as neurotic as the next guy.