Geography of Madness: Penis Thieves, Voodoo Death, and the Search for the Meaning of the World's Strangest Syndromes | 
so-soFascinating subject but the book didn't live up to its premise - too focused on one specific syndrome, which became boring & felt like a padded-out magazine article. Some interesting stuff also let down by author's need to create a spurious 'personal' connection.
so-soSome reviews compared Frank Bures to Jon Ronson, but I did not find this to be true. Sure they both skew towards unusual topics, but I find Robson a lot easier to read. At times this book felt a little like a very long magazine article, without an easy pace to make it enjoyable.
Started this last night and am so here for it. Investigative journalism meets sociology in a look at psychological problems that only show up in certain cultures. Fascinating so far.
so-soEhh. Rather than a collective look at many different syndromic illnesses or mental illnesses that are "culture bound", Bures focuses primarily on koro (shrinking genitals) intermixed with his musings on his own development as a writer. Not as "science-y" as I had hoped it would be.
Pointing out whether all the brown/not US people speak good-quality English is getting super old in this book. If you mention a translator, I'll assume that you couldn't converse comfortably in a shared language; if you don't mention a translator, I'll assume you could. 😒
