by Tom Hodgkinson
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| List Price: | $18.95 |
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| Lowest New Price: | $8.91 |
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Product Description
From the founding editor of The Idler, the celebrated magazine about the freedom and fine art of doing nothing, comes not simply a book, but an antidote to our work-obsessed culture. In How to Be Idle, Tom Hodgkinson presents his learned yet whimsical argument for a new universal standard of living: being happy doing nothing. He covers a whole spectrum of issues affecting the modern idler—sleep, work, pleasure, relationships—while reflecting on the writing of such famous apologists for it as Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Nietzsche—all of whom have admitted to doing their very best work in bed.
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Average Customer Review:
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 On the right track, but..., 2008-09-15
I very much appreciate the effort of Hodgkinson to swim against the tide and remind his readers of the long and venerable tradition of shirking or avoiding unnecessary labor as well as servile labor. And if the book succeeds in recommending to its readers other writers concerned with living a human life (rather than the life of a slave or a machine), then the book is a success.
But I fear that the book is much too journalistic (which means playful in a dissipating sense rather than an edifying one--the play of children is edifying, that of the escapist is dissipating).
If I were to recommend a book that deals with a similar topic, but does so in a much more substantive and satisfying way, I would recommend Thoreau's Walden--a book with which Hodgkinson seems to have passing acquaintance, but one he would be well-served to attend to more closely.
For those interested in a philosophical treatment of a related topic, I recommend Josef Pieper's Leisure: The Basis of Culture. Given the Catholic tendencies of Hodgkinson, I expected to see some influence of Pieper's thought in this book. It would have been a better book with such influence.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful:
 A relaxing stroll with an erudite pal who knows everyone..., 2008-06-20
This is quite a fun and relaxing read, but the very best part is that Hodgkinson brings in quotes and thoughts by everyone from Seneca to Wilde to Hemingway. Even though you're reading about slacking and dreaming about idling, all the while you're actually taking in the Great Thoughts by the Great Thinkers. I read it in one day, comfortably perched in my favorite chair. A must-read for all Anglophiles as well as anyone who revels in thumbing his or her nose at the workaday world out there.
0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
Quickly one of my favorites, 2008-01-13
One of the best books on this subject I've ever read. Hodgkinson is an amazing essayist and his philosophies are very insightful. I recommend this book to anyone, really, but especially those who know how to enjoy life. Also check out The Freedom Manifesto, also by Tom Hodgkinson. They are two reassuring reads in this insane world we live in.
1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
Living not just existing, 2007-10-02
This book made me think about life and how I'm living it (and for those who dislike it, at least read the last chapter, it has the most fuel for thought). Although I don't agree with him entirely I do think that we have become enslaved by the system and serve it rather than it serving us. Many of us live to work rather than work to live and we need to look at how we're living and decide if we really want to continue in misery or change things to suit us. We have moved, unthinking, into the 20th and 21st centuries, all the time moving faster, working harder, striving for something that might be within our grasp if we slowed down and thought about it.
Although I wouldn't be as idle as he espouses, I do think that I wouldn't mind down-shifting my life.
This book is a series of views on a variety of issues from smoking to napping, a book that encourages us to think about our lives rather than just put our lives in neutral and keep going. Agree with him or disagree with him, he made me think about how much of my life is spent rushing instead of enjoying.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
My 100-word book review, 2007-03-19
I found this book an enjoyable way to spend a few stray hours. Hodgkinson is an entertaining and quirky writer with a fine sense of mischief but whose underlying message is a serious one. Some of the things he advocates are not for me (I dislike cigarette smoking, and rioting and raves seem like appalling wastes of energy) but dreaming, daydreaming, getting up late and becoming lost in reveries are all activities I love. The regimented ways in which many of us work nowadays are tantamount to slavery, and this book is a subversive nudge in the direction of freedom.
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The Freedom Manifesto: How to Free Yourself from Anxiety, Fear, Mortgages, Money, Guilt, Debt, Government, Boredom, Supermarkets, Bills, Melancholy, Pain, Depression, Work, and Waste
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