Free: Adventures on the margins of a wasteful society - Softcover

"A fascinating study which proves that waste is aplenty in our consumer society." (The Independent)

"Free is part squatting guide, part diary and is loaded with statistics. Sometimes it feels as if Hibbert has counted every Pret A Manger sandwich that ended up in a landfill. Her anger at the waste of consumer society is relentless.Over the past year, we have focused on the fall of the bankers, but Free is a reminder that the recession has had an equally dramatic effect on those several rungs below them on the financial ladder." (The Telegraph)

"In this account of her varied, and largely positive, experiences, Hibbert paints a detailed and often funny self-portrait of a young Londoner who sneaks fox-like around her city, managing to survive off its detritus for a whole year, affording her the time to appreciate her choices and her relative youth more fully than had she stayed in her "cosy, domesticated rut" (Times Litarary Supplement)

"Her book is a passionate plea against the rubbish society. It might not be free, but it's worth reading even if you don't find it in a skip." (ROOF - Shelter's Housing Magazine)

For many the daily grind can feel like a trap - work, gym, drinks, shops, home, bed, work. But what would happen if one day you just jacked it all in, to survive on next to nothing? Katharine Hibbert decided to find out.

No job, no rented flat, no shopping, no debit card and no travel pass. Katharine decided to give it all up, to walk the streets with only a backpack and spend a year living off the food, clothes, other goods and accommodation that would otherwise go to waste. It would be year of squatting, scavenging and no spending. Would she survive and if she did would she ever want to go back?

The journey takes her on a fascinating trip, from drug-dens to lavish squatted mansions. She has to learn to fend for herself and to trust the generosity of strangers and friends she makes along the
way. She falls into a hidden community who teach her how to build a life using the things that others throw away, and finds that life on the margins amounts to so much more than you might think.