The Book of the Bivvy. Ronald Turnbull

A guide to bivvybag skills and expeditions, The Book of The Bivvy is a half-and-half mix of how to do it and why to do it (or how not to do it, and why not to do it). Accounts of expeditions, both nice and nasty, alternate with practical chapters about the technicalities of the breathable membrane, how little kit you really can get away with and the secrets of lightweight long distance. The book closes with a selection of bivvybag expeditions to initiate the unwary into the secrets. Ronald's informed, humorous, instructive, wry look at the world of the bivouac is certainly the first, and perhaps the last, word on this unexplored territory. Along the way Ronald shows that 1900 to 1969 was the dark age of the bivouac, how Diogenes (the Cynic) bivvied under timber, and that the Eiger was climbed only through improved bivvying technique.