SHRINKING VIOLETS
ALSO BY JOE MORAN
Queuing for Beginners
On Roads
Armchair Nation
SHRINKING VIOLETS
A Field Guide to Shyness
First published in Great Britain in 2016 by
PROFILE BOOKS LTD
3 Holford Yard
Bevin Way
London WC1X 9HD
www.profilebooks.com
Copyright © Joe Moran, 2016
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Typeset in Sabon by MacGuru Ltd
Printed and bound in Great Britain by
Clays, St Ives plc
The moral right of the author has been asserted.
All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise), without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher of this book.
A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
ISBN 978 1 78125 263 5
eISBN 978 1 78283 067 2
In memory of my grandmother
Ellen Evaskitas, née Roberts (1917–1958)
CONTENTS
1.A Tentative History
2.This Odd State of Mind
3.How Embarrassing
4.Tongue-Tied
5.Stage Fright
6.Shy Art
7.The War against Shyness
8.The New Ice Age
Notes
Acknowledgements
Index