| Description |
viii, 277 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm |
| Contents |
Introduction: A Golden Age of Weirdness -- 1. The Study -- 2. Four Hundred Years of Eccentrics -- 3. Eccentricity and Creativity: The Artists -- 4. The Scientists -- 5. Lost Continents and Golden Ages -- 6. Eccentricity and Mental Illness -- 7. Eccentric Childhood -- 8. The Eccentric Personality -- 9. The Psycholinguistic Analysis -- 10. Eccentric Women -- 11. Sexual Eccentricity -- 12. Eccentricity and Health |
| Summary |
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 |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 257-265) and index |
| Subject |
Eccentrics and eccentricities -- United States -- Biography.
|
|
Eccentrics and eccentricities -- Biography.
|
| Genre/Form |
Biographies.
|
| Author |
James, Jamie, 1951-
|
| LC no. |
95001857 |
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