My memoir and history of camping, The Art of Camping: The History and Practice of Sleeping Under the Stars is published on July 7.
Illustration by Paul Blow
The fruit of two years’ research and a lifetime of camping, The Art of Camping book takes a left-hand trail through the history of sleeping outdoors; the book recreates the camping trips of radical youth movements of the 1920s such as the Kindred of the Kibbo Kift and Order of Woodcraft Chivalry, at a time when it seemed like society was teetering on the edge of collapse and camping was the key to a new way of life.
It follows the first camps of Thomas Hiram Holding, the grandfather of camping, and it sits around the campfire with the likes of Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Ford, Thomas Edison and Theodore Roosevelt – great American mavericks for whom camping was to key to their self-mythology. These vignettes from history are interspersed with contemporary questions about why we camp and what it means.
The Bookseller recommended this camping book as their One To Watch in July. It includes marvellous illustrations by Paul Blow.
You can pre-order The Art of Camping now from Amazon. Pre-ordering means you get the book as soon as it becomes available, and it makes the author feel happier as their Amazon rank improves as the publication date approaches and makes it more likely that other people will become aware of the book.
