The Crackpot Compendium : A mind-boggling and fascinating A-Z of history's most eccentric thinkers - Edward Brooke-Hitching

The Crackpot Compendium : A mind-boggling and fascinating A-Z of history's most eccentric thinkers - Edward Brooke-Hitching

Edward Brooke-Hitching

£16.99
Pre-order

Published 8 October 2026

Order now and we’ll post it on publication day. We take payment today and hold your order until then; if the publisher moves the date we’ll email you, and you can cancel for a full refund at any point before it ships.

  • Pages · 384 pages
  • Publication Date · 08/10/2026
  • Genre · Humour
Collect in store Pick it up free from the shop in Oxford's Covered Market, usually quicker than the post.
Delivery Standard tracked £1.99, free on orders over £20. Express tracked £2.99.
Book Lovers' Happy Hour Three cocktails matched to your taste, three books chosen for you, an hour and a half at the bar. £60 per person. Book a place →
A truly mind-boggling and fascinating A-Z of history's most eccentric thinkers. Filled to bursting with jaw-droppingly strange episodes from history, The Crackpot Compendium is a riotous tour of crackpot inventors, false prophets, quacks and pseudo-scientists, con-artists and impostors, and hundreds of other truly `outside-the-box' thinkers. Discover stories of dinosaur espionage, earthquake-predicting plants and leech barometers, cat pianos and canine translation devices, immortal adventurers, cities spotted on the Moon and aliens living on the Sun. This colossal collection travels the world and across the millennia to take in telepathic Soviet circus clowns, Scottish abominable snowmen, Welsh prophets, ancient Chinese test pilots, invisible African mountains, and the aviator known as `Wrong Way' Corrigan who accidentally flew backwards across the Atlantic.�If you have ever wondered how to build a pigeon death-ray, start a snake cult with a hand-puppet, interrogate a houseplant or perform psychic surgery, The Crackpot Compendium�will provide the answers (while also probably leaving you with a few new questions.)

Only at Gulp Fiction

Book Lovers' Happy Hour

An hour and a half at the bar, with three cocktails matched to your taste and three books chosen for you. Tell us what you like when you book, and we'll have them waiting when you arrive.

  • 1½ hours
  • £60 per person
  • 3 cocktails, 3 books
Book Happy Hour

Up to four of you can come — book a place each and choose the same time slot, then tell us who you're with. For larger groups, email gulpfictionbooks@gmail.com and we'll arrange it.

Three customers at the window table in Gulp Fiction, cocktails in hand beside a stack of books, with Oxford's Covered Market visible through the glass

Collect in store

Order online and pick it up from the shop. It's free, and usually quicker than the post.

Find us

Units 28–29, Covered Market, Oxford OX1 3DU. Mon–Wed 10–5, Thu–Sat 10–10, Sun 11–4.

Book a table

The bar is open late Thursday to Saturday. Reserve a table for a drink among the books.