I have to conf: I’ve never been sure I knew exactly what “camp” meant. I had an idea but, you know. This book was a wonderful and fun explanation! Camp, campy, camp: who knew there was a difference! I especially enjoyed the historical tidbits of camp legacy. Now that I’ve been educated, I will have to go look at the 2019 Met Gala with new eyes!

This is a great collection of Camp and the people that brought camp alive / revived it. Some people I have followed careers of and some I need to google

“Still struggling to understand the notion of camp? Welcome to the club. Camp is a mysterious shape-shifting miasma which evolves over time.”

I love this, a-z book all on camp and campy figures.

An exploration of one hundred things that are “unapologetically camp” according to the author (jury’s still out on whether he’s the 101st thing. Lots of the things are historic, it’s not filled with of-the-moment flashes in the pan, so it’s not meant for the children (thank you, Simon, for writing a book for the adults in the room. He dives deep.

I won’t spoil any of the fun by giving anything away, but it’s with a fun couple of hours while you debate whether you agree and whether it’s Camp or camp.

Simon Doonan, fashion and camp mainstay and the former creative director at Barney's, has written a delightful successor to Susan Sontag's Notes on Camp. He details 100 different Camp and campy figures and ideas throughout his book, which are brought to life in beautiful illustrations by Kenzo Hamazaki.

Throughout the book, Simon covers historical figures ranging from Attila the Hun all the way up to Lil Nas X. I really appreciated all of his essays and his experiences with so many of these Camp figures made it all the more personal and informative.

My one complaint is that Simon's age shows a bit, and I hope that this is corrected in the final printing, but there are a handful of times where transsexual is used rather than transgender for a few different folks, and using the wrong pronouns for Sam Smith where the entire essay is otherwise devoted to celebrating their non-binary campiness. I also bristled at making fun of the Amber Heard/Johnny Depp trial, but given that this is more recent, I don't know how I'd feel for the similar jabs at some of the historic feuds that were covered.

This would make a really beautiful coffee table book for casual perusal and any time you need a bit more Camp in your life.

Thank you very much to NetGalley and White Lion Publishing for the advanced copy.

This seemed like a great concept for a book in the theoretical sense, but it becomes apparent fairly quickly that there really isn’t enough material here for a full countdown of 100, and maybe not even enough to justify the presentation of the material in book form. I can’t help but think this would have made a better essay or long form magazine piece, with just a few sentence on each entry.

Some of the entries truly are clever and valid examples of camp, but many felt too much like the author trying to invent something to create a long enough list. I also think this book badly needed photos. The illustrations are fine I suppose in terms of quality, but they’re pretty generic in that they don’t vary much in any meaningful way, and because camp is such a visual concept, photos of each entry felt not just preferable but necessary.

Quirky, curiously informative (as in a cultural time capsule for future use) and part funny, this was an okay read.
Perhaps I did not get the humour, the context and the objectives clearly.
Some jokes fell short.
Would I recommend it? I do not even know how to describe it!
This title is a humorous non-fiction book, a small sized subjective encyclopaedia about some contemporary pop culture/culture figures and items.
I apologise if my review does not do it justice, but what the heck have I read?
The illustrations are 3/5
The quirk 5/5
My mind’s reaction 2-3 stars