Reviews - How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

4.44k reviews for:

How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy

sped up the audiobook just to get it over with. i know the author had the disclaimer up front about the book being disorganized, but it felt so jumpy and unfocused that i could scarcely pay attention—plus i didn’t care for the audio narrator. plenty of interesting tidbits here, but i didn’t feel like they connected to an overarching Idea. would not read this author again.

bwmartin11's review against another edition

5.0

Not a lot I didn’t already know but should be required reading for most.

sshbrd's review against another edition

4.0

emotional hopeful informative inspiring reflective

ssteffens20's review against another edition

4.0

This was hard to get into and the title didn’t accurately depict the book’s contents, but it prompted some nice reflection on what we choose to notice and how it shapes our reality.

wolfsonarchitect's review against another edition

4.0

reflective medium-paced

It bothered me that the argument was more collage than linear reasoning, but it was thougjt provoking.

clemen95's review against another edition

3.0

informative medium-paced

cgreeby's review against another edition

3.0

This was a fascinating read. I went into the book thinking this would be a ‘How to’ guide for getting out of the attention economy. By the end of the first few chapters I realised it read more like an anti-capitalist manifesto. Mark Fisher talks about the fact it is hard to imagine outside of the capitalist system and, therefore, we struggle to imagine new systems. This was reading as the closest thing I’ve seen to a proposition, an offering, of an alternative way of living.

However, I was to be disappointed. The alternatives offered in this book - bioregionalism as a new focus for our attention, networks and ways of communicating that are contextualised with locality among the most notable - aren’t disruptive or innovative. With the suggestion that we should be answering the capitalising of our attention by refusing the terms of the question being posed, Odell doesn’t really offer a powerful image of what that looks like. Instead she gives offerings of historic attempts at communication that may serve as inspiration for a better reality post-late stage capitalism.

That said, this book has changed the way I view the world and given me a lot to think about. As someone who wants to take part in the Solarpunk movement that is emerging, I’m very glad I read it and hope that it will inform the spaces I try to create online. I would call it essential reading for anyone who wants to do the same. Although, I do take issue with anyone who is doing the philosophical thinking but is unable to articulate those thoughts without using big impressive words. Distilling them down into language and arguments constructed for anyone to be able to absorb is a skill and one that Odell unfortunately doesn’t demonstrate in the writing of this book.

jessiespangler's review against another edition

While I liked the concept of this book, and there are definitely some ideas I’ll be taking with me, I just couldn’t get through it. Her writing is very clinical and there is basically no strong writing voice. I took a long break but tbh that was a bad idea because when I tried to jump back in I didn’t even want to try reading the rest. I don’t do well with this type of writing or the “You should this. We should do this, too” kind of message lol.

I might look up a spark notes version of this because like I said, intriguing concept and a lot of things rang true so I’m interested in what ideas she floats in the second half of this book.