Howie Mandel's 'Here's the Deal: Don't Touch Me'

Dec. 1, 2009— -- Howie Mandel, host of the prime time game show "Deal or No Deal," has prove he is a versatile performer.In his 30-year career in show business, he has hosted his own daytime talk show, created the TV show "Bobby's World" and starred in the TV series "St. Elsewhere" and in feature films.

More than a decade ago, Mandel first spoke about his fear of germs. Now, he opens up about his daily battle with obsessive compulsive disorder and ADHD in his candid, hilarious memoir, "Here's the Deal: Don't Touch Me."

Read the excerpt below, and then head to the "GMA" Library to find more good reads.

Check out Mandel's Web site at www.howiemandel.com.

Welcome to Me

November 29, 1955. Toronto, Ontario, Canada. Mount Sinai Hospital. Howard Michael Mandel was born to Albert and Evelyn Mandel. I have absolutely no recollection of my infancy, but I'm told I was the happiest, most idyllic child, not to mention the cleanest child known to man.

As excited as my mother must have been about having me, she tells me that she felt like a child herself. She was just twenty-three, and my father was twenty-nine. She was really nervous about her baby boy and wanted to protect him from the evils of the world at that time-the Commies, nuclear proliferation, and, most important, the invasion of germs.

Whenever somebody came over to see her baby, God forbid they should touch little Howard's teeny fingers. As soon as they left, she would take me into the bathroom and scrub my hands with soap and water. If somebody sniffled and touched my crib, my mother would mark the spot in her mind. She would remember that it was two inches to the left of the headboard, and again, as soon as that person left the room, she would hit that spot with the Lysol, putting me back in my sterile environment.

You might think this was over the top, but the apple didn't fall far from the tree. The first and all recollections I have of visiting my grandparents on my mother's side were of approaching the house and seeing my "bubbie" outside the front door on her hands and knees, waxing the concrete veranda. Waxing. Concrete. Outside. There was no way she was going to allow anyone to track filth into her home. She believed that this was the first line of defense toward maintaining a safe environment-that is, if you ignored the fact that it was very easy to slip and break your neck before you rang the doorbell. Let's weigh the odds here: no dirt on your feet, or a broken neck. She seemed to lean in favor of no dirt on the feet.