A 2007 Top Seller in Medicine as compiled by YBP Library Services.

Selected as a 2008 AAUP University Press Book for Public and Secondary School Libraries.

Selected by Choice magazine as an Outstanding Academic Title from 2008.

Highly commended for the 2008 Medical Book Award in the category of Mental Health, sponsored by the British Medical Association.

Translated into French, Korean, and Japanese, with Spanish and Danish translations forthcoming.

“Superb”—Library Journal (* review)

“Brilliant”—New Statesman

“Excellent”—New York Observer

“Splendid”—The Lancet

“Scathing”—Publishers Weekly

“Well-researched, controversial”—New York Times Book Review

“Reasoned and convincing”—Le Monde

“Well-written and incendiary”—Journal of the History of the Behavioral Sciences

“Lane has exposed a very worrying problem”—Journal of Mental Health

“Christopher Lane's polemical Shyness features the manipulations that promoted social anxiety disorder to a national emergency.”—New York Review of Books

“Overall, Lane's scholarly account of this saga ensures that if you're not already concerned about the over-medicalization of our mental lives, you will be.”—BBC Focus