Hands cover art

Hands

An Anxious Mind Unpicked

Preview

Try Premium Plus free
1 credit a month to buy any audiobook in our entire collection.
Access to thousands of additional audiobooks and Originals from the Plus Catalogue.
Member-only deals & discounts.
Auto-renews at $16.45/mo after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Hands

By: Lauren Brown
Narrated by: Lauren Brown
Try Premium Plus free

$16.45 per month after 30 days. Cancel anytime.

Buy Now for $21.99

Buy Now for $21.99

Confirm Purchase
Pay using voucher balance (if applicable) then card ending in
By confirming your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions Of Use and Privacy Notice and authorise Audible to charge your designated credit card or another available credit card on file.
Cancel

About this listen

‘Raw, intense and absorbing.’ Matt Haig

‘As tender and funny as it is painful.’ TLS

‘I didn’t give my hands much thought before they turned against me. … They have been chipping away at my life, slowly, slowly, in a way I could never have predicted.’

Lauren Brown is anxious. And when she feels worried, she picks at her skin. Secretly, quietly, but increasingly compulsively, her skin-picking begins to affect her day-to-day life until she realizes she must unravel the reasons behind it.

This sparkling memoir follows the thread of Lauren’s anxiety – tangled and frayed – back to its source. Written with rare wit and insight, it is an attempt to redirect the anxiety that’s pooled in her fingertips for as long as she can remember, released in odd bursts in caravan parks, on European holidays, at GP surgeries and on the wind-stung north-east coast. It is a moving and joyful exploration of obsession, forgiveness, stigma and healing, and a true love-song to the north.

Thoughtful, unsparing and at times darkly comic, Hands is the masterful debut of a luminous new talent.

©2022 Lauren Brown (P)2022 HarperCollins Publishers Limited
Biographies & Memoirs Mental Health Psychology

Critic Reviews

"Light beautifully shed on a subject seldom talked about. This book is frank, raw and generous." (Helen Mort)

"Raw, intense and absorbing." (Matt Haig)

"What a book Lauren Brown has written! A new voice is here. Hands is bright and vivid in the scenes it summons up, brave in its candour, moving in the story it tells, and very often very funny." (Robert Macfarlane)

What listeners say about Hands

Average Customer Ratings

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.

In the spirit of reconciliation, Audible acknowledges the Traditional Custodians of country throughout Australia and their connections to land, sea and community. We pay our respect to their elders past and present and extend that respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples today.