Books › How to Be Idle
How to Be Idle
368 pages
A witty, erudite permission slip to step off the treadmill of modern productivity and reclaim the lost art of doing absolutely nothing.
What it feels like
Reading this book feels like playing hooky from life and spending the afternoon in a dimly lit, wood-paneled pub with a brilliant, slightly eccentric friend. It unfolds at a delightfully leisurely pace, meandering through history, literature, and philosophy to dismantle the modern cult of productivity. The prose is wry, erudite, and deeply comforting, wrapping you in a cozy, defiant atmosphere that makes the simple act of taking a nap feel like a revolutionary triumph. It is an intellectual but highly accessible romp that shifts your emotional baseline from frantic exhaustion to a liberated, joyful calm. Overworked professionals, burnt-out creatives, and chronic daydreamers will devour this witty manifesto, finding within its pages a much-needed permission slip to simply exist.
- Mood
- cozy
- contemplative
- defiant
- relaxed
- Tone
- wry
- erudite
- rebellious
- humorous
- laid-back
- Pace
- leisurely
- Themes
- the tyranny of work · reclaiming time · the joy of doing nothing · anti-hustle culture · simple pleasures
- The writing
- Witty, conversational, and peppered with literary quotes, reading like a chat with a well-read, slightly eccentric friend.
- The arc
- Moves from a shared sense of modern exhaustion to a liberating, joyful embrace of personal freedom and rest.
- Who it's for
- Overworked professionals, daydreamers, and armchair philosophers looking for permission to slow down and reject hustle culture.
Content notes
- discussions of alcohol use
About the book
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.
Description from Open Library.
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