Headline Home wins Alexandra Shaker's 'refreshing perspective on anxiety'

Headline Home has snapped up The Narrowing: A Journey Through Anxiety and the Body by clinical psychologist Alexandra Shaker following a three-way auction.

UK and Commonwealth rights were acquired by Anna Steadman, editorial director, from Emma Finn at C&W Agency. The book will be published in March 2025 simultaneously with Viking in the US. 

"Alexandra’s empathy, incisiveness and genuinely refreshing perspective on anxiety hooked me from the first time I read her work, and I am so excited for readers to discover this affecting and powerful book next year," said Finn. 

Shaker’s first book, The Narrowing, is an exploration of anxiety that goes through the body to examine the connections between our emotional, psychological and physical lives. The book brings together psychology, neuroscience, history and literature and suggests a new way to approach anxiety as part of the human condition. 

Steadman said: "Anxiety is a subject that touches most of our lives, now more than ever. I love the original and accessible way that Dr Alexandra Shaker writes about it in this book, deftly combining her personal experience with her professional knowledge and the latest research. I’m so pleased to be working with her and Emma, alongside the team at Viking in the US."

"In The Narrowing, I use the body as a map to delve into the science of anxiety alongside the existential questions that anxiety asks of us," said Shaker. "I draw upon my expertise as a clinical psychologist and bring to bear the wisdom and tenderness of my personal experiences. I speak to anxiety’s power to diminish us and to save us, and to the ways that life can expand when we are able to reckon with our fears. By unpacking the shape and legacy of anxiety in our physical bodies and all they represent to us psychologically, I explore how anxiety can be turned on its head, to find vitality, power and resilience."