Are you crazy?

Where ordinary eccentricity ends and genuine oddness begins is the question at the center of this book. Its eighteen quizzes rest on research and were designed by psychologists to study how people behave. Readers can judge whether their own habits, or those of friends and relatives, fall within the normal range, sit at its edge, or lie well outside it. The categories cover sex addiction, obsessive-compulsive tendencies, extreme food habits, a taste for thrills, hypochondria, fetishism, paranoia, and impostor feelings.

Beyond the quizzes, the author explains more than 80 unusual behaviors in plain language, each illustrated with a real-life case. Among them are a person who craves dirt and eats it by the handful, someone who fears doughnuts because the filling cannot be seen, and a person who invents a relative's death to collect sympathy cards.

The book is more than a light gathering-night diversion. It also offers guidance on handling other people's unusual conduct and on confronting one's own insecurities and phobias.