Hypochondria

By: Will Rees

Narrated by: Will Rees

A personal and literary examination of hypochondria.​

A free-wheeling philosophical essay, Hypochondria is expansive in its range of references, from the writings of Franz Kafka to original yet accessible readings of theorists like Lauren Berlant. Whether he is discussing Seinfeld, John Donne, or his own hypochondriac past, Rees reveals himself to be a wry and perceptive critic, exploring the causes—and the costs—of our desire for certainty. With wit and erudition, Hypochondria demonstrates both the rewards and the perils of reading (too) closely the common but typically overlooked aspects of our everyday lives.

©2024 Will Rees (P)2025 Coach House Books

Critic reviews

“[O]ne mind’s effort to reconcile its impressions of the world, however distorted, with those of a long lineage of thinkers before him, in the process metastasizing a non-theory of hypochondria into a more universal thesis about the enduring power of human doubt.”—Lauren Christensen, New York Times

“In Hypochondria, Will Rees pulls off an almost impossible balancing act. He recalls his personal history with great clarity and vulnerability, and he assembles a dazzling archive of his fellow writers and hypochondriacs: Melville, Kafka, Freud, Sartre, Didion. Hypochondria, Rees shows us, is a specific case of fantasizing about what we cannot know—we are all, in our own ways, hypochondriacs.”—Merve Emre, Literary Hub

“[S]timulating … Rees raises intriguing questions about links between hypochondria and undiagnosed autoimmune disorders, and ruminates on hypochondria as an extreme form of existential self-reflection.”—Publishers Weekly