The gowk storm ([New ed.])

Oddballs, tinks, heidbangers, saints, keelies, nutters, philosophers and freaks.

These apparently marginal lives are not only interesting in their own right but often tell us more about the mores of a country or a time than the lives of its better known citizens (and some of them are included here too).

Here, the Japanese poet Basho, the baseball star Babe Ruth and the singer Billie Holiday rub shoulders with Ganesh, Johnny Faa, the Gypsy Laddie and Eliza Donnithorne (true-life model for Dickens?

Miss Havisham). Angus Calder has created an original, ex-centric and richly entertaining compendium of brief but essential lives.