In Praise of Odd Type Writers

Odd Tye Writers, book by Celia Blue Johnson, red cover
Odd Type Writers by Celia Blue Johnson
Odd Type Writers by Celia Blue Johnson is a delightful discovery! The subtitle says it all. I recommend it for bedtime, the beach, the doctor’s waiting room, the subway commute. . . Well written, lively, each section short and entertaining.

Last week I posted on Why We Write. Consider this book a companion piece to that one. Johnson culled the quirkiest bits and most obsessive behaviors of each author from interviews, websites, biographies, etc. In her own words, “Edgar Allan Poe balanced a cat on his shoulder while he wrote. Agatha Christie munched on apples in her bathtub while concocting murder plots. Victor Hugo shut himself inside and wore nothing but a long, gray, knitted shawl when he was on a tight deadline.” And so much more!

From the Table of Contents
Edgar Allan Poe daguerreotype crop
By Unknown; most likely George C. Gilchrest, Samuel P. Howes, James M. Pearson, or Andrew J. Simpson, all of Lowell, MA [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons {{PD-US}}
  • Rotten Ideas: Friedrich Schiller
  • By the Cup: Honoré de Balzac
  • Feeling Blue: Alexandre Dumas, père
  • House Arrest: Victor Hugo
  • A Mysterious Tail: Edgar Allan Poe
  • The Traveling Desk: Charles Dickens
  • Paper Topography: Edith Wharton
  • The Cork Shield: Marcel Proust
  • Flea Circus: Colette
  • Traffic Jamming: Gertrude Stein
  • Tunneling by the Thousands: Jack London
  • A Writer’s Easel: Virginia Woolf
  • Crayon, Scissors, and Paste: James Joyce
  • Leafing Through the Pages; D.H.Lawrence
  • Puzzling Assembly: Vladimir Nabokov
  • Outstanding Prose: Ernest Hemingway
  • Sound Writing: John Steinbeck’Pin It Down: Eudora Welty
  • Don’t Get Up: Truman Capote
  • Early to Write: Flannery O’Connor
You’ll enjoy these sketches of famous authors whether you’ve read their work or not! Cover to cover, this is a great read!

Odd Type Writers book, back cover
Odd Type Writers back cover