Bibliophobia

Books tempt you, and they can even destroy you, expose you, awaken you, and move hidden things in you - this is what Sarah Chihaya believes. And everyone who is an incurable bookworm knows the strange kind of encounter that turns your world upside down. Sarah calls this type of books: “life destroyers.” Her devastating book, The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison, became a talisman for her throughout her teenage years. You see, each of us has his own destructive book. Sarah's whole life revolved around books: she read to find an escape, an identity, and rules to help her live. She became a literary critic and taught literature at a prestigious university. Then she suddenly collapsed, was hospitalized, and the world became an unreadable blank page. When she tried to get back up, she found herself facing a terrifying question: Can we really rewrite the stories that control our lives? Bibliomania is a captivating, sometimes painful, sometimes sarcastic biography of collapse and survival, narrated by its author through books. From Anne in the Green Highlands to Possession, from A Tale of the Temporal Being to The Last Samurai, Sara Chihaya digs into her identity, her relationship with depression, and the strange and poignant ways in which books resist those who love her most.