In the great wandering tradition of Bill Bryson, Louis Theroux and Jon Ronson, journalist Mark Haskell Smith strips down the world of social nudism in a hilarious, wildly entertaining and profoundly enlightening book about those who renounce clothing and embrace what lies beneath.Naked at Lunch is one man's cracklingly witty, compellingly odd and oddly life-affirming journey into the subculture of nudism. Celebrated journalist Mark Haskell Smith meets, and indeed joins, those shucking off social conventions by shucking off their clothes - he hikes bareback in the Alps with a naked rambler's society, he buys baguettes in the buff in a French resort and he meets the marginally dressed mayor of a Spanish clothes-optional municipality. But this is not just a book of naked adventures and sun-ripened genitals. It is a study of 20th-century Western cultural and social mores; a record of radical history and politics practised by those made radical by their refusal to get dressed; a heartfelt celebration of the simple joys of being alive; and a full-blooded war cry for reclaiming pride in our bodies and rejecting those who would make us ashamed.

Mark Haskell Smith is the author of five previous novels,Moist,Delicious,Salty,Baked, andRaw, and the non-fiction bookHeart of Dankness. His work has appeared in theLos Angeles Times, theLos Angeles Review of Books, andVulture. He lives in Los Angeles.