Eccentrics are highly intelligent, often in unusual ways. This study of eccentric people shows that they tend to be exceptionally creative, and also healthier, happier and longer-lived than the ordinary person. But, the book asks, why are they so rare?

From 1859 to 1880, Joshua Abraham Norton thought he was Emperor of the United States. Ann Atkin keeps 7,500 garden gnomes in her backyard. Brooklyn artist Peter McGough dresses and acts as if it were 1895. These are just a few of the eccentrics discussed by Dr. Weeks, the world's foremost expert on the subject.

A SCIENTIST LOOKS AT ECCENTRICS-AND THE ODDITIES THAT KEEP THEM SANE After years of research, a practicing psychotherapist has proof that eccentrics are usually healthier than the rest of us-as well as more creative, more idealistic, more opinionated, and much more fun to read about. Dr. David Weeks fills his hook with fascinating case studies, including Joshua Abraham Norton, who once proclaimed himself Emperor of America and even convinced many people to consider themselves his subjects: Dr. Patch Adams, founder of the Gesundheit Institute and a physician who believes that humor fosters healing and dresses as a clown to treat his patients; and Florence Foster Jenkins, a would-be diva whose love of music was exceeded only by her lack of talent, but whose wealth enabled her to stage a recital at Carnegie Hall, Entertaining, funny, and thought provoking, Eccentrics introduces a series of extraordinary men and women-and encourages us to enjoy our own healthy eccentricities as well.

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.

A scientific study of eccentric behavior differentiates between eccentricity and insanity while providing anecdotes and history examples that cite such figures as William Blake, Charlie Chaplin, and Albert Einstein.