The Importance of Being Lazy: In Praise of Play, Leisure, and Vacations
by Al Gini
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Book Summary Information
Author: Al GiniEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2006-04-27
ISBN: 0415978696
Number of pages: 192
Publisher: Routledge
Book Reviews of The Importance of Being Lazy: In Praise of Play, Leisure, and Vacations
Book Review: Not a lazy read
Summary: 4 Stars
The Importance of Being Lazy: In Praise of Play, Leisure, and Vacations, by Al Gini
First and foremost, this book is not a lazy read-it requires attention and commitment from the reader. It is informative and clearly well-researched. I find it amusing that a book on laziness requires so much of its readers.
Gini's main thesis in this book is that Americans aren't necessarily overworked, but we are defiantly under-rested. We work more hours a week than anyone (even the Japanese, he repeatedly points out), but take far less vacation, not even the vacation we're due. And when we aren't working, we certainly aren't resting. He likens the need for leisure and relaxation with the concept of the Sabbath, a useful analogy he continues through the book. Leisure time should be unwired, reflective, even spiritual-a way to look at ourselves and grow as people, bettering ourselves and becoming more connected to our communities and families.
Gini considers many reasons for us not embracing leisure and play. Primarily, we work too much-our careers define us. And even if we don't let our careers define us, we need more stuff (so does consumerism cause workaholism or is it the other way around?) Even during weekends and vacations, our time is packed with structured and prepackaged activities that claim to offer us whatever we feel is lacking in our lives for a few hundred bucks. And then it's all supposed to come to a screeching halt at retirement. We would be better served, he suggests, to find ways to improve ourselves and become more comfortable with who we are inside than flitting away all our time and money on flashiness (except when he says it, it doesn't sound nearly so shallow and new-agey).
Generally, if you have time and attention to read this book, you are not one of the ones who needs to read this book. Perhaps we are suppose to go out and proclaim the good news of laziness to others, or maybe we are suppose to pat ourselves on the back for not spending too much time at work and in front of the TV to enjoy other parts of life. Or maybe we should get our noses out of books for a little while and go play...
Summary of The Importance of Being Lazy: In Praise of Play, Leisure, and Vacations
The great American fantasy is about leisure: wooded getaways, Caribbean cruises, white-water rafting, thelights of Las Vegas. Yet one in four Americans does not take a vacation at all. We know how to work hard but not how to play.What we really need, argues Al Gini, is some time off. The Importance of Being Lazy takes us on family road trips, to Disneyland, on shopping sprees, on extreme sports adventures, and into the ultimate vacation - retirement -- showing why we venerate vacations and why "doing nothing" is a fundamental human necessity.
In a witty, breezy tour of our workaholic society, where the summer at the seashore has been supplanted by the long weekend, Gini draws on studies of Americans' vacation habits as well as interviews, personal stories, and the wry observations of philosophers, writers, and sociologists from Aristotle to Mark Twain to Thorstein Veblen.
Without true leisure, Gini says, we are diminished as individuals and as a society. The Importance of being Lazy is our road map for learning how to play, doze, gaze, amble, and goof-off without guilt.
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