Download or read book Character Studies written by Mark Singer and published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. This book was released on 2006-09 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.