Food for thought from a memoir of mental illness
A first-time author, who has written for the Times, the Daily Telegraph and the Spectator, among others, Laura Freeman has framed her debut as a story of how reading about food helped her conquer her fear of eating in real life
Non-fiction: The Reading Cure, By Laura Freeman, Orion Books, €21
In its etymology, the word ‘anorexia’ is simple yet misleading; it means ‘without appetite’, but this fails to explain the reality of the disorder. Someone with anorexia doesn’t lose their appetite so much as deny it; their stomach will shrink from deprivation, but they’ll rarely stop thinking about food. Rather, they’ll dwell on it, obsess over it, stare at it in pictures and ...
