The Art of the Wasted Day is a picaresque travelogue of leisure written from a lifelong enchantment with solitude and silence. Patricia Hampl visits the homes of historic exemplars of ease who made repose a goal, even an art form. Hampl's own life winds through these pilgrimages, from a fascination with monastic life, to love and the loss of it, which forms the book's thread of inquiry. Finally, floating down the Mississippi in an old cabin cruiser with her husband turns out, after all her international quests, to be the great adventure of her life. The Art of the Wasted Day is a compelling celebration of the purpose and appeal of letting go.