Picked up a slightly grubby copy of How To Be Free from the ever-reliable Reading Oxfam bookshop. It seemed true to the spirit of the text not to pay full whack & to be side-stepping the Dark Forces of Waterstones, Amazon, etc..
It was Gavin P-P's cloud book that led me to Tom Hodgkinson & his first volume: How To Be Idle. However, scratch away at the low brow Self-Help-style marketing and you begin to realise there's a very serious argument - maybe aesthetic is a better word - being presented. In fact, I'd put money on these books being re-worked academic research for a never completed doctorate (something that appeals to me enormously). Of course, you could argue that writing and publishing two such volumes is a contradiction in terms - would a true idler ever submit to such discipline? Never mind, these are valuable documents in adverse times. And while the bibliographies read like lists of good old friends (Debord, Vaneigem, Ruskin, Lawrence) there are one or two gatecrashers I need to get to know better.
Recommended.
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