Alphamaniacs
Builders of 26 Wonders of the Word
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- $13.99
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
Are you a word person? A curiosity seeker? An explorer? Take a look at these twenty-six extraordinary individuals for whom love of language is an extreme sport. Step right up and read the genuine stories of writers so intoxicated by the shapes and sound of language that they collected, dissected, and constructed verbal wonders of the most extraordinary kind. Jean-Dominique Bauby wrote his memoirs by blinking his left eyelid, unable to move the rest of his body. Frederic Cassidy was obsessed with the language of place, and after posing hundreds of questions to folks all over the United States, amassed (among other things) 176 words for dust bunnies. Georges Perec wrote a novel without using the letter e (so well that at least one reviewer didn’t notice its absence), then followed with a novella in which e was the only vowel. A love letter to all those who love words, language, writing, writers, and stories, Alphamaniacs is a stunningly illustrated collection of mini-biographies about the most daring and peculiar of writers and their audacious, courageous, temerarious way with words.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With a ringmaster's rhetorical flourishes, Fleischman invites readers to step right up and be dazzled by 26 "imaginers tinkerers" who explore "the airy land of letters." Readers encounter Daniel Nussbaum's PL8SPK (translating literary works using the vocabulary of vanity license plates); Doris Cross's artful erasures, which turn dictionary pages into poems; Wompanoag Jessie Little Doe Baird's heroic reclamation of a vanished language; and Jean-Dominique Bauby's astounding communications following a stroke, delivered with the flick of an eyelid. Other subjects include a verbal prankster who has crafted a whole novel without an E and an obsessive scanning texts for secret messages. Each individual is given a brief chapter recounting their word-related exploits, interleaved with colorful, collaged illustrations by Sweet that look like stray pages from an artist's overstuffed sketchbook, incorporating relevant quotes and amplifying Fleischman's themes of abundance and possibility. A unique amalgam, one that will charm many. Ages 12 up.
