The Art of the Wasted Day is a picaresque travelogue of leisure, written from a lifelong enchantment with solitude. Patricia Hampl visits the homes of historic exemplars of ease who made repose a goal, even an art form. These include two celebrated eighteenth-century Irish ladies who ran off to live a life of ‘retirement’ in rural Wales and Michel Montaigne, who retreated from court life to sit in his chateau tower and write about whatever passed through his mind, thus inventing the personal essay. Hampl's own life winds through these pilgrimages, from childhood days lazing under a neighbour's beechnut tree, to a fascination with monastic life, and a remembered journey down the Mississippi near home in an old cabin cruiser with her husband, which turned out to be the great adventure of her life. The real job of being human, Hampl finds, is getting lost in thought, something only leisure can provide. The Art of the Wasted Day is a compelling celebration of the purpose and appeal of letting go. “Delightfully nebulous - dangling somewhere between travelogue, literary criticism, memoir, and love letter” - The American Scholar “A wonderfully lavish and leisurely exploration of the art of daydreaming” - Publishers Weekly