Eccentrics: a Study of Sanity and Strangeness - Hardcover

Weeks, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0394565657 ISBN 13: 9780394565651

Publisher: Random House USA Inc, 1995

Synopsis

In Eccentrics: A Study of Sanity and Strangeness, Dr. Weeks - in collaboration with journalist Jamie James - reveals that eccentrics are creative, curious, idealistic, opinionated, intelligent, and, in many cases, healthier than normal people. They also consult doctors about sixteen times less frequently than noneccentrics; because they are less prone to the stresses of conformity, Weeks suggests, they suffer fewer ailments.
Eccentrics shows you how to identify your own eccentricities and cultivate them so that you, too, can lead a happier - if perhaps slightly more odd - existence. After all, most eccentrics don't wear fright wigs and magenta tights (though they don't hesitate to do so if they feel the urge); many of them carry their weirdness within, and some have had profound cultural influences - consider Ben Franklin, who was a nudist (he called it "air-bathing"); Alexander Graham Bell, who tried to teach his dog to talk; and James Joyce, who always carried in his waistcoat a pair of ladies' bloomers, which he would wave at parties to show his approval.

About this title

From the Inside Flap

1880, Joshua Abraham Norton thought he was Emperor of the United States. Ann Atkin keeps 7,500 garden gnomes in her backyard. Brooklyn artist Peter McGough dresses and acts as if it were 1895. These are just a few of the eccentrics discussed by Dr. Weeks, the world's foremost expert on the subject.

Edition details

• Publisher: Random House USA Inc
• Publication date: 1995
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0394565657
• ISBN 13: 9780394565651
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 277