I Believe In Yesterday
  • Published: 1 September 2009
  • ISBN: 9780099492986
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $39.99
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I Believe In Yesterday

My Adventures in Living History

Formats & editions
EBook
1 Sep 2010
Paperback
1 Sep 2009
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'Hailed as the new Bill Bryson, he in fact a writer of considerably more substance' - Irish Times

In 1989, Tim Moore moved into the last house in Chiswick with an outside toilet. Intrigued by a subsequent encounter with an elderly former resident, he finds himself inspired to travel back to the land before now, experiencing the hardships and pleasures enjoyed and endured by Moores gone by.

The journey that follows takes him through the world of historical re-enactment: living on bramble leaves, Johnny cake and porridge, Moore travels from the Iron Age to the Steam Age, from Roman legionary to Tudor master to Yankee spy, sharing straw beds and daft hats with period obsessives driven by socio-historical curiosity, disillusionment with the modern world, or a simple nostalgia for campfires, flatulence and brutality.

I Believe in Yesterday is an odyssey through 2,000 years of filth and fury, to a time where men were men, the nights were black, the world was your outside toilet and everything tasted faintly of leeks.
  • Published: 1 September 2009
  • ISBN: 9780099492986
  • Imprint: Vintage
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 256
  • RRP: $39.99
Categories:
Share…

About the author

Tim Moore

Tim Moore’s writing has appeared in the Daily Telegraph, the Observer, the Sunday Times and Esquire. He is the author of Gironimo!, French Revolutions, Do Not Pass Go, Spanish Steps, Nul Points, I Believe In Yesterday and You Are Awful (But I Like You). He lives in London.

portrait photo of Tim Moore

Also by Tim Moore

Vuelta Skelter
Another Fine Mess
The Cyclist Who Went Out in the Cold
Gironimo!
You Are Awful (But I Like You)
Nul Points
Spanish Steps
See all

Praise for I Believe In Yesterday

Moore has never been afraid to suffer for his art. In pursuit of comic travelogue gold, he's followed in the footsteps of a nineteenth-century explorer; driven, silver-suited, across Europe in a temperamental Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow; cycled the 3,500km-plus route of the Tour de France; and made a pilgrimage to Santiago accompanied only by a donkey. But none of this compares to what he endured for this superbly funny new book

Time Out

The tone is light and Moore a delightful writer

London Lite

The main lesson of this entertaining trawl through history-as-dressing-up is that living the way we used to is not much better

Times Literary Supplement

Hugely enjoyable... Whether he's firing cannons, battling Gauls or forgetting how to get into his codpiece, moore is always entertaining, and this book is laugh-out-loud funny and genuinely educational

The Gloss

A witty, inventive and engaging book

Waterstones Books Quarterly

His funniest book... Possibly the best book ever completed by a man covered in congealed animal fat, sweat and canon smoke

Independent

A live and amusing... interesting and entertaining read

TNT Magazine

One of our most amiable writers

The Times

Moore is a talented and very funny writer

Daily Telegraph

The world's funniest travel writer

Observer