Gods, Mongrels and Demons: 101 Brief But Essential Lives

This book is based on the premise that the lives of the 'oddballs, tinks, heidbangers' etc often tell us more about the mores of a country than the lives of its more illustrious citizens (not that some of these are not included in here too). In what other book could such eminent figures as the seventeenth century Japanese poet Basho, the modernist artist Kurt Schwitters (who sculpted in porridge while interned on the Isle of Man), the baseball star Babe Ruth, the singer Billie Holiday and the philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein rub shoulders with the likes of Anancy, Ganesh, Johnny Faa, Billy the Kid, Eliza Donnithorne (the true-life Australian model for Dickens' Miss Havisham) or the Swiss air aces with a higher pro-rata strike rate than the RAF in the Battle of Britain.