Alphamaniacs
Builders of 26 Wonders of the Word
Candlewick Press · Print & ebook · April 14, 2020
Are you a word person?
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- Who it’s for
- Meet writers who made language an extreme sport, one strange and ingenious word-world at a time.
- Themes
- Love of language, Experimental writing, Writers’ lives
- Genres
- Writers' Lives for Kids, Creative Writing, Wonder & Curiosities
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Start with this bookAbout this book
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.
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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.
Words Gone Wild
Meet writers who made language an extreme sport, one strange and ingenious word-world at a time.
Come here for
- True stories of writers obsessed with words, sounds, and letters
- Linguistic feats from dust-bunny vocabulary to vowel-defying books
Expect
- Twenty-six brisk mini-biographies
- A playful, illustrated celebration of verbal daring
Where it sits
| Wonder & Curiosities | 76% |
|---|---|
| Writers' Lives for Kids | 58% |
| Creative Writing | 45% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- Writers' Lives for Kids
- Wonder & Curiosities
- Creative Writing
- Authors
- Paul Fleischman
- Publisher
- Candlewick Press
- Published
- April 14, 2020
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Theme
- Love of language · Experimental writing · Writers’ lives
- Reading lane
- Writers' Lives for Kids