First published 2020
Paul Fleischman presents twenty-six writers whose passion for language drove them to extraordinary feats. These individuals treated words as their obsession and playground. Jean-Dominique Bauby composed his entire memoir through eyelid blinks after losing movement in his body. Frederic Cassidy traveled across America asking hundreds of questions about regional speech, collecting 176 different terms for dust bunnies in the process. Georges Perec crafted a complete novel without using the letter e, fooling at least one reviewer who never noticed the missing vowel, then wrote another work using only e as its vowel. Each profile reveals writers who pushed language to its limits through collecting, analyzing, and creating verbal experiments. Fleischman celebrates these language lovers who turned writing into an extreme pursuit, showcasing their bold approaches to words and storytelling.
Genres: reference, language, non-fiction, academic
Vibes: intimate, thought-provoking, whimsical
Tropes: extreme-pursuit, obsession
160 pages · Kindle Edition · Candlewick Studio