How to be Idle

by Tom Hodgkinson

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How to be Idle is Tom Hodgkinson's brilliant guide to reclaiming your right to be idle

'Well written, funny and with a scholarly knowledge of the literature of laziness, it is both a book to be enjoyed at leisure and to change lives' Sunday Times

As Oscar Wilde said, doing nothing is hard work. A burn-out 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. 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 affect the modern idler:
-Sleep
-Work
-Pleasure and hedonism
-Relationships
-Bohemian living
-Revolution

Drawing on the writings of such well-known apologists for idleness as Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson and Nietzsche, his message is clear: take control of your life and reclaim your right to be idle.

  • ISBN10 0141015063
  • ISBN13 9780141015064
  • Publish Date 30 June 2005 (first published 26 August 2004)
  • Publish Status Active
  • Publish Country GB
  • Imprint Penguin Books Ltd
  • Format Paperback
  • Pages 368
  • Language English