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reebsforspace's review
4.75
Super, super impactful. The sections within the slow movement were painted well.
Only reason for .75 is lack of discourse centered around "fast fashion," though it was mentioned, at times I felt some experiences Honoré shared were blitzed through, and I would have liked more background on the research provided as well as have some provided in general (I've seen the sources in the back of the book but I still think more benefit could have been added had some been delved into more within the chapters rather than in the "notes."
Really happy I found this book.
Only reason for .75 is lack of discourse centered around "fast fashion," though it was mentioned, at times I felt some experiences Honoré shared were blitzed through, and I would have liked more background on the research provided as well as have some provided in general (I've seen the sources in the back of the book but I still think more benefit could have been added had some been delved into more within the chapters rather than in the "notes."
Really happy I found this book.
juliana_aldous's review
5.0
I’m always conscious of time—and I envy creative people like musicians, writers and artists who can place themselves in the flow and losethemselves. I envy them because I so rarely get there myself. But I’ve been trying. See, I have a problem with time management. Not that I’m disorganized but I’m always trying to fit more in so I can do it all. As a result I’ve read probably every time management book under the sun. In the eighties I had my Time Planner, and now I live by my todo lists, and weekly, quarterly and annual goals. I’ve learned to be efficient and I’m always looking for ways to cut corners on the things that don’t matter to me so I can spend more time on the things that do.
So I’ve really been looking forward to reading In Praise of Slowness because I am the target demographic. A number of years ago I read John de Graff’s book Take Back Your Time and it changed my life. It opened my eyes to how we overwork ourselves in the United States. One of my favorite posters on his organization’s site is a cartoon that says, “Medieval Peasants Worked Less Than You Do.” I even attended one of their conferences. It was right after the economy crashed and they were struggling with how we could possibly get a minimum vacation law passed now. How sad!
In Praise of Slowness is a great book. It focuses on the Slow movement started in Italy and profiles areas where people are deciding enough is enough, work isn’t all there is, and it is time to get off the treadmill and enjoy life. The author, Carl Honore profiles ways people are taking back their lives through and choosing a more leisurely route through food, urban planning, mind/body, medicine, sex, work, leisure, and the over scheduled child.
I’m not exactly about to start cooking several hours a day, but I’ll be glad to eat any meals my friends choose to make and spend an evening with them. In fact, I did that last Friday. I went to a friend’s house and I made a new salad recipe while she and her partner bbqed. We drank wine while the kids went crazy running around the backyard. I left with a full belly and my kid fell asleep in the car on the way home. I need more nights like that. And that is something I’m working on—I’m currently working on building my support network in the real world and making more time for friends and family.
If you think your life is stressful and there isn’t enough time in the day, then please read this book. Pick an area or two, and then focus on how you can slow down. (And if you choose food, please invite me over). Then read de Graaf’s book Take Back Your Time and look for how we can change the work world to make it better. And then learn how to stop being a slave to technology by reading Be Excellent at Everything.
So I’ve really been looking forward to reading In Praise of Slowness because I am the target demographic. A number of years ago I read John de Graff’s book Take Back Your Time and it changed my life. It opened my eyes to how we overwork ourselves in the United States. One of my favorite posters on his organization’s site is a cartoon that says, “Medieval Peasants Worked Less Than You Do.” I even attended one of their conferences. It was right after the economy crashed and they were struggling with how we could possibly get a minimum vacation law passed now. How sad!
In Praise of Slowness is a great book. It focuses on the Slow movement started in Italy and profiles areas where people are deciding enough is enough, work isn’t all there is, and it is time to get off the treadmill and enjoy life. The author, Carl Honore profiles ways people are taking back their lives through and choosing a more leisurely route through food, urban planning, mind/body, medicine, sex, work, leisure, and the over scheduled child.
I’m not exactly about to start cooking several hours a day, but I’ll be glad to eat any meals my friends choose to make and spend an evening with them. In fact, I did that last Friday. I went to a friend’s house and I made a new salad recipe while she and her partner bbqed. We drank wine while the kids went crazy running around the backyard. I left with a full belly and my kid fell asleep in the car on the way home. I need more nights like that. And that is something I’m working on—I’m currently working on building my support network in the real world and making more time for friends and family.
If you think your life is stressful and there isn’t enough time in the day, then please read this book. Pick an area or two, and then focus on how you can slow down. (And if you choose food, please invite me over). Then read de Graaf’s book Take Back Your Time and look for how we can change the work world to make it better. And then learn how to stop being a slave to technology by reading Be Excellent at Everything.
sadie_scout's review
4.0
great subject matter and good book, but i wish it would’ve got into more detail about implementing this philosophy.
tyardnol's review
2.0
Quit halfway through. A bunch of anecdotal stories that have very little in common. Author constantly tries to take quotes from people in one town and use it as scientific evidence that his viewpoint is obviously true.
jlharter's review
informative
medium-paced
2.75
Volumes of data, plus, it'll make you feel bad for living in the U.S..
cuprum_buddy's review
I dropped this book after a half of it, since I started to find it boring. I don't know whether it has any instructions on how to live slowly, but it felt almost as fiction about very similar people who enjoy very similar lives. "Our lives became better after we slowed down!", which sounded nice at first, but after dozens of repetitions came to be simply dull. While I got some nice ideas (now I actually want to try out yoga, although I believe this book wasn't the main reason for this thought to come to me), I think that "In Praise of Slowness" could be much shorter, so it wouldn't give an inevitable impression of being a well-written waste of time.
librocrone's review
informative
inspiring
reflective
medium-paced
2.75
This book was immensely frustrating for several reasons, some pettier than others. First I'll start with the nice things.
The nice things: I agreed with probably like, 80% of this book, and with all of Honoré's major points. We should, as a society, slow down. We're all run ragged by our obsession with doing as much as possible in as little time as possible. Burnout, isolation, and depression are rampant in our culture, and that has probably only changed for the worse since this book was published in 2004. Honoré is most certainly not WRONG, and his examples of different aspects of life that can be slowed down were a good list to begin thinking about areas of the reader's own life in which to slow down.
So, he's not wrong, but also, he's not right.
The petty reasons this was frustrating: I listened to this on audio, and it was read by the author. Usually that's a positive, but unfortunately, Honoré cannot pronounce "artisanal" nor the "Quixote" portion of Don Quixote, which just. Were really jarring and weird. Like, it's "artizznle" right? He says "art-is-annall" the entire time he was talking about food and I just wanted to put my head through a pane of glass. Also, he has advanced degrees in Italian, but pronounced Quixote like "kwik-soat," like????? I DON'T have an advanced degree in a Romantic language, but I know it's "kee-hoh-tay." This was not only frustrating, but definitely a small thing that notched at credibility, which is pretty important for nonfiction.
The not petty reasons this was frustrating: Honoré spends an obnoxious amount of this book sucking up to capitalism. Like, really. In several chapters, it comes to a head where the next logical step of what he's discussing indicates that, hey, maybe CAPITALISM is BAD???? And he's just basically like, "nope, it's not actually!" He has this pipe dream that the super-wealthy will ever give a single fuck about the little guys at the bottom of the food chain enjoying their lives. He doesn't take into account the corrupt and amoral people at the top of our society enforcing capitalism on lower classes. The book in general is just very privileged in every way you can imagine, especially in the realm of class.
His idea that capitalism can be reformed to benefit us instead of treating the middle, working, and lower classes like fodder is just not realistic. The people at the top will not abide it. It's a nice idea, but if you want to achieve a slower lifestyle, you're going to have to substantially overhaul the system. I don't pretend to know enough about economics to say what can or should be done, but I feel like I know enough about the capitalist society we currently live in to say that just asking the wealthiest class to please let the working class have some free time to enjoy their lives isn't going to get you any results. We've been trying that tactic for decades, but the dehumanization of lower class people by the super-wealthy means that it ain't gonna happen that way.
Since this was published in 2004, I really hope that Honoré has come to realize that capitalism and slow living are fundamentally at odds. They cannot coexist. Or, at least, not for everyone. Only some people will have enough money to make slow living a reality. Some people are living fast because if they substantially slow down, they will literally die.
Like I said, I agree with most of what Honoré had to say. I do think we should slow down. I think people should be able to enjoy their lives rather than be obsessed with their schedules and their achieve rates and their pace of life. We all deserve the opportunity to see the beauty of being alive rather than rushing through our lives without having a moment to enjoy it. But he's not really willing to take the intellectual steps necessary to make a slow lifestyle accessible to everyone, and that involves dismantling capitalism.
camprocter's review
Gosh, I'm really surprised to have bailed on this one. I was intrigued, but I couldn't get past the overwhelmingly middle class undertones. The underlying idea is one that I'm on board with, but this book was not for me, I guess.