OverDrive would like to use cookies to store information on your computer to improve your user experience at our Website. One of the cookies we use is critical for certain aspects of the site to operate and has already been set. You may delete and block all cookies from this site, but this could affect certain features or services of the site. To find out more about the cookies we use and how to delete them, click here to see our Privacy Policy.
A guidebook for beating the monotony of the everyday by purposefully cultivating the surprising joys that come from living an off-kilter life It's all too easy to get caught up in the often monotonous nature of our day to day—moving from one rote task to the next, only to rinse and repeat the next day. Weirdness, however, is an easily accessible antidote to these feelings of languishing. The quirky, eccentric, and peculiar can take us out of our normal habits of thought and perception, surprising us by breaking up our routines and reminding us that there's more to life than the everyday.
In How to Be Weird, Eric G. Wilson offers 99 fun and philosophically rich exercises for embracing all the weird in the world around us—taking aimless walks, creating a reverie nook, exploring the underside of bridges, making tombstone rubbings, finding your own Narnia, and more. With brief digestible entries on how to make sense of the random, guidelines on how to defamiliarize familiar objects through meditation, and exercises for locating weird states and phenomena for ourselves, How to Be Weird is an invitation to lean into the weird and to live a fuller life.
A guidebook for beating the monotony of the everyday by purposefully cultivating the surprising joys that come from living an off-kilter life It's all too easy to get caught up in the often monotonous nature of our day to day—moving from one rote task to the next, only to rinse and repeat the next day. Weirdness, however, is an easily accessible antidote to these feelings of languishing. The quirky, eccentric, and peculiar can take us out of our normal habits of thought and perception, surprising us by breaking up our routines and reminding us that there's more to life than the everyday.
In How to Be Weird, Eric G. Wilson offers 99 fun and philosophically rich exercises for embracing all the weird in the world around us—taking aimless walks, creating a reverie nook, exploring the underside of bridges, making tombstone rubbings, finding your own Narnia, and more. With brief digestible entries on how to make sense of the random, guidelines on how to defamiliarize familiar objects through meditation, and exercises for locating weird states and phenomena for ourselves, How to Be Weird is an invitation to lean into the weird and to live a fuller life.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
Due to publisher restrictions the library cannot purchase additional copies of this title, and we apologize if there is a long waiting list. Be sure to check for other copies, because there may be other editions available.
About the Author-
Author Bio: Eric G. Wilson is the Thomas H. Pritchard Professor of English at Wake Forest University. He is the author of books Against Happiness: In Praise of Melancholy, an LA Times bestseller; Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck: Why We Can’t Look Away; and Keep it Fake: Inventing an Authentic Life, as well as many other books exploring connections among literature, film, and psychology.
Reviews-
September 19, 2022 English professor Wilson (Everyone Loves a Good Train Wreck) offers a whimsical guide to embracing eccentricity. He provides 99 activities that aim to foster creativity and wonderment at everyday life, encouraging readers to “spend a day as a termite,” “carve soap,” and “review books that do not exist.” Challenging 19th-century philosopher Charles Peirce’s assertion that left-handedness brings about negativity, Wilson suggests readers try learning to write with their nondominant hand because the change in perspective may, he contends, enhance tolerance and generosity. The author describes Wiccan and Akkadian magicians’ belief in the magic properties of circles—made with chalk, flour, or sticks—and proposes that readers create their own circle to protect them from stressors. Telling how George Eliot and Mark Twain came up with their pen names, Wilson urges readers to invent an alter ego and devise a backstory for them. The array of ideas range in level of practicality (making ink requires more ingredients than determining “if you are asleep or awake”), but Wilson doesn’t skimp on the strangeness and delivers a self-help guide defiantly unlike any other. This quirky volume welcomes the unconventional with humor and insight. Agent: Matt McGowan, Frances Goldin Literary.
Title Information+
Publisher
Books on Tape
OverDrive Listen
Release date:
OverDrive MP3 Audiobook
Release date:
Digital Rights Information+
OverDrive MP3 Audiobook
Burn to CD:
Permitted
Transfer to device:
Permitted
Transfer to Apple® device:
Permitted
Public performance:
Not permitted
File-sharing:
Not permitted
Peer-to-peer usage:
Not permitted
All copies of this title, including those transferred to portable devices and other media, must be deleted/destroyed at the end of the lending period.
Please update to the latest version of the OverDrive app to stream videos.
Device Compatibility Notice
The OverDrive app is required for this format on your current device.
Bahrain, Egypt, Hong Kong, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, the Sudan, the Syrian Arab Republic, Tunisia, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and Yemen
You've reached your library's checkout limit for digital titles.
To make room for more checkouts, you may be able to return titles from your Checkouts page.
Excessive Checkout Limit Reached.
There have been too many titles checked out and returned by your account within a short period of time.
Try again in several days. If you are still not able to check out titles after 7 days, please contact Support.
You have already checked out this title. To access it, return to your Checkouts page.
This title is not available for your card type. If you think this is an error contact support.
There are no copies of this issue left to borrow. Please try to borrow this title again when a new issue is released.
| Sign In
You will be prompted to sign into your library account on the next page.
If this is your first time selecting “Send to NOOK,” you will then be taken to a Barnes & Noble page to sign into (or create) your NOOK account. You should only have to sign into your NOOK account once to link it to your library account. After this one-time step, periodicals will be automatically sent to your NOOK account when you select "Send to NOOK."
The first time you select “Send to NOOK,” you will be taken to a Barnes & Noble page to sign into (or create) your NOOK account. You should only have to sign into your NOOK account once to link it to your library account. After this one-time step, periodicals will be automatically sent to your NOOK account when you select "Send to NOOK."
You can read periodicals on any NOOK tablet or in the free NOOK reading app for iOS, Android or Windows 8.
