Description: With vivid portraits that show the traits by which a hoarder can be identified, Frost and Steketee explore the compulsion through a series of compelling case studies, and illuminate the pull that possessions exert on all of us.
Brief description: DR. GAIL STEKETEE is a professor and acting dean at Boston University in the school of social work.
Review Quotes:
"Pioneering researchers offer a superb overview of a complex disorder that interferes with the lives of more than six-million Americans. . . . Writing with authority and compassion, the authors tell the stories of diverse men and women who acquire and accumulate possessions to the point where their apartments or homes are dangerously cluttered with mounds of newspapers, clothing and other objects. . . . An absorbing, gripping, important report." --Kirkus (starred) "Like those classics of psychological study, A. R. Luria's The Mind of the Mnemonist and Oliver Sacks's The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, Stuff is authoritative, haunting, and mysterious. It is also intensely, not to say compulsively readable."--Tracy Kidder "A fascinating book--Stuff is the stuff of nightmares, of people living in a world subsumed by their obsession to collect and hoard things. You will surely recognize, to one degree or another, a part of yourself in these portraits."--Jonathan Harr, author of The Lost Painting and A Civil Action "Eye-opening... Frost and Steketee write with real sympathy and appreciation for hoarders...This succinct, illuminating book will prove helpful to hoarders, their families, and mental health professionals who work with them." -- Publishers Weekly
"An excellent starting point for family, friends, and neighbors of hoarders, but the vivid writing will attract readers who enjoy fiction or memoirs about extreme behavior." -- Library Journal, starred review
"Fascinating." -- People
"[The authors] invite us graciously into territory that might otherwise make us squirm . . .To those who need to understand hoarders, perhaps in their own family, Stuff offers perspective. For general readers, it is likely to provide useful stimulus for examining how we form and justify our own attachments to objects." -- New York Times Book Review
"Stuff is worth reading not only because of the authors' authority on the subject, but also because of its elegant prose, and its nuanced and well-researched take on the subject." -- Salon.com "[The authors'] examples are rich in storytelling and dialogue, and they admirably balance a fascination with the psychological profiles of their subject with a deep sympathy for their plights . . . The book is a valuable study of a poorly understood condition." -- Minneapolis Star Tribune "Amazing... Utterly engrossing." -- Washington Post "Gripping . . . A highly readable account of this perplexing impulse . . . The book succeeds beyond mere voyeurism, because Stuff' invites readers to reevaluate their desire for things." -- Boston Globe --