In these characteristically incisive essays, Mark Singer profiles eccentrics, monomaniacs, and other remarkable people he thinks we ought to meet. He takes us into the worlds of the sleight-of-hand master Ricky Jay, the ardent bibliophile Michael Zinman, and better-known personalities such as the entrepreneur Donald Trump and the meticulous filmmaker Martin Scorsese. He interviews a devoted fan of the cowboy movie star Tom Mix and a group of Texans who are determined to recover the skull of Pancho Villa from Yale's Skull and Bones society, among others. A riveting tour of obsession, Character Studies reveals the passions that drive the ordinary, the quirky, and the truly, fanatically fixated.

Austen'sUnbecomingConjunctions is a contemporary study of all Jane Austen's writings focusing on her representation of women, sexuality, the material objects, and linguistic patterns by which this sexuality was expressed. Heydt-Stevenson demonstrates the subtle, vulgar, and humorous ways Austen uses human bodies, objects, and activities (fashion, jewelry, crafts, popular literature, travel and tourism, money, and courtship rituals) to convey sexuality and sexual appetites. Through the sexual subtext, Heydt-Stevenson proposes, Austen satirized contemporary sexual hypocrisy; overcame the stereotypes of women authors as sexually inhibited, sheltered, or repressed; and addressed as sophisticated and worldly an audience as Byron's. Thus through her careful reading of all the Austen texts in light of the language of eroticism, both traditional and contemporary, Heydt-Stevenson re-evaluates Austen's audience, the novels, and her role as a writer.