The Mammoth Book of Oddballs and Eccentrics (Mammoth Books)

By Karl Shaw

Book Overview

From Beethoven to Howard Hughes, Shaw reveals exploits by crackpots and visionaries--the phobias, compulsions, odd beliefs, and weird habits that have placed them in the ranks of the bizarre. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0786707240
• ISBN13: 9780786707249
• Release Date: February 2000
• Publisher: Running Press Book Publishers
• Length: 512 Pages
• Weight: 0.82 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 5.3" x 7.7"

Customer Reviews

An informative and entertaining read about oddballs

This book is a nice compendium of anecdotes about the slightly cracked personalities that have permeated the Arts, the Sciences, Religion, Politics, the Military, Sports and the Royalties. It is thematically organized under various types of eccentricities, starting with aristocratic eccentrics, religious eccentrics, cracked actors, hermits, misers, misanthropes, and ending with the "Wizards of Odd." As the introduction points out, "true eccentrics are never troubled by self-doubt" and so a kind of wondrous enthusiasm permeates the pages of this book. Amongst the people celebrated in this book are Salvador Dali, Florence Nightingale, Kaiser Wilhelm Lord Monboddo, Ed Wood, Liberace,Sarah Bernhardt, Beethoven, King George I and many others...