Yearning for a life of leisure? In 24 chapters representing each hour
of a typical working day, this book will coax out the loafer in even the
most diligent and schedule-obsessed worker.
From the founding editor of the celebrated magazine about the freedom
and fine art of doing nothing, The Idler, comes not simply a book, but
an antidote to our work-obsessed culture. In How to Be Idle,
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--bemoaning the cultural skepticism of idleness
while reflecting on the writing of such famous apologists for it as
Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Johnson, and Nietzsche--all of
whom have admitted to doing their very best work in bed.
It's a well-known fact that Europeans spend fewer hours at work a week
than Americans. So it's only befitting that one of them--the very
clever, extremely engaging, and quite hilarious Tom Hodgkinson--should
have the wittiest and most useful insights into the fun and nature of
being idle. Following on the quirky, call-to-arms heels of the
bestselling Eat, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to
Punctuation by Lynne Truss, How to Be Idle rallies us to an equally
just and no less worthy cause: reclaiming our right to be idle.
