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How long does it take to read How to Be Idle?

Tom Hodgkinson

How to Be Idle by Tom Hodgkinson takes about 5 hours 15 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.

About 5 hours 15 minutes

A weekend read

First published 2005. 286 pages, about 78,650 words.

11 days at 30 minutes a day

Estimate based on 275 words per page.

At other speeds

Slow, 150 words a minute 8 hours 44 minutes
Average, 250 words a minute 5 hours 15 minutes
Fast, 400 words a minute 3 hours 17 minutes

The page count is the median across 6 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.

About the book

As Oscar Wilde said, doing nothing is hard work. The Protestant 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. From Tom Hodgkinson, editor of the Idler, comes HOW TO BE IDLE, an antidote to the work-obsessed culture which puts so many obstacles between ourselves and our dreams. 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 may affect the modern idler – sleep, the world of work, pleasure and hedonism, relationships, bohemian living, revolution – he draws on the writings of such well-known apologists for idleness as Dr Johnson, Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson and Nietzsche. His message is clear: take control of your life and reclaim your right to be idle.

Subjects: Laziness, Humor (Nonfiction), Nonfiction, Politics, Leisure, Happiness

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