Product Description

As Oscar Wilde said, doing nothing is hard work. The Protestant work ethic has most of us in its thrall, and the idlers of this world have the odds stacked against them. But here, at last, is a book that can help. From Tom Hodgkinson, editor of the Idler, comes HOW TO BE IDLE, an antidote to the work-obsessed culture which puts so many obstacles between ourselves and our dreams. Hodgkinson presents us with a laid-back argument for a new contract between routine and chaos, an argument for experiencing life to the full and living in the moment. Ranging across a host of issues that may affect the modern idler sleep, the world of work, pleasure and hedonism, relationships, bohemian living, revolution he draws on the writings of such well-known apologists for idleness as Dr Johnson, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson and Nietzsche. His message is clear: take control of your life and reclaim your right to be idle.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #17521 in Books
• Published on: 2005-06-30
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 352 pages

Review
An intelligent slugabed, bemoaning the modern world's love affair with productivity, presents 24 meditations on the art of being idle, one for each hour of the day. Hodgkinson, co-publisher of the British magazine The Idler, begins at 8 a.m. with a discussion of the alarm clock and the horrors of waking up in general. (Here, he makes the first of many references to Victorian idler and humorist Jerome K. Jerome, whose essay "On Being Idle" appeared in 1889.) Other topics the author contemplates as the day goes by are "Sleeping In" (John Lennon and Yoko Ono's week in bed), "The Ramble," "The First Drink of the Day" and so on. "The Death of Lunch" is bemoaned. "Smoking" is celebrated. "The Pub" is praised. "Time for Tea" cites a lovely 16th-century Chinese poem that lists occasions on which to drink England's favorite beverage: "Before a bright window and a clean desk. / With charming friends and slender concubines." Each piece addresses the delights of a particular aspect of doing nothing, its literary and social precedents, and the regrettable reasons for its fall from favor. Capitalism and the Industrial Revolution both come in for censure as chief villains; Barbara Ehrenreich's Nickel and Dimed and E.P. Thompson's The Making of the English Working Class are cited, among countless others. So many others, in fact, that it is nearly impossible to believe the author is a true adherent of his creed. A great amount of (gasp) work must have gone in to researching this paean to the pleasures of doing little; the bibliography alone comprises nearly 150 items. Indeed, with all of these literary citations and closely argued points, How to be Idle becomes rather heavy going after three or four sections. No matter: no idler worth his salt will read it in a single sitting-there's too much fishing, tea drinking and napping to be done. Charming, as all idlers should be. (Kirkus Reviews)

Synopsis
As Oscar Wilde said, doing nothing is hard work. The Protestant work ethic has most of us in its thrall, and the idlers of this world have the odds stacked against them. But here, at last, is a book that can help. From Tom Hodgkinson, editor of the Idler, comes HOW TO BE IDLE, an antidote to the work-obsessed culture which puts so many obstacles between ourselves and our dreams. Hodgkinson presents us with a laid-back argument for a new contract between routine and chaos, an argument for experiencing life to the full and living in the moment. Ranging across a host of issues that may affect the modern idler sleep, the world of work, pleasure and hedonism, relationships, bohemian living, revolution he draws on the writings of such well-known apologists for idleness as Dr Johnson, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson and Nietzsche. His message is clear: take control of your life and reclaim your right to be idle.

About the Author
Tom Hodgkinson was born in 1968. Since founding the Idler in 1993, he has been a frequent contributor to many newspapers and magazines and appears regularly on TV and radio to discuss 'idler' issues. This is his first book.

Customer Reviews

Entertaining, enlighteneing and essential.
Within the one broad theme of 'Idleness', Hodgkinson manages to encompass so many neglegted yet important facets of life. Our need to work less and play more is justified in a very well written book using examples and quotes from some great thinkers through history.
The greatest strength of this book is that it gives you a warm feeling that things you enjoy - beer gardens, sleeping etc - are actually really good for you. The guilt associated with not working so many hours per week, or needing to get up early to do DIY, are actually relics from the industrial revolution. This era of mass production with time as a mere commodity can be changed if people take on board the ideas of this book and adjust their lives to suit their soul and not their bank balance.
The book is divided into neat sections, each with a well placed quote, this makes it easy to read when visiting the toilet or having a bath. Although the tone is whimsical and flippant I think you can take a serious message from How to be Idle.
Who would I recommend this book to? Well..., everyone really.

Made me think
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.

Great style, wit and creativity- bit short on the action
But then again maybe that is the point. Tom is always funny, engaging and stimulating. While I may have problems with the basis of his anarchist philosophy- its all Puritanism fault apparently- many of his down shifting suggestions and his rejection of materialist values are spot on. However to prove the point about idleness Tom has actually implemented very few of his suggestions. As the old Rolls Royce driving gurus use to say "Look at the moon not the finger that points at it". But then again maybe not.