ShelfLook
Tools About
Cover of Leisure

How long does it take to read Leisure?

Josef Pieper

Leisure by Josef Pieper takes about 2 hours 40 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.

About 2 hours 40 minutes

An evening's read

First published 1958. 145 pages, about 39,875 words.

6 days at 30 minutes a day

Estimate based on 275 words per page.

At other speeds

Slow, 150 words a minute 4 hours 26 minutes
Average, 250 words a minute 2 hours 40 minutes
Fast, 400 words a minute 1 hour 40 minutes

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

About the book

One of the most important philosophy titles published in the twentieth century, Josef Pieper's Leisure, the Basis of Culture is more significant, even more crucial, today than it was when it first appeared more than fifty years ago. This edition also includes his work The Philosophical Act. Leisure is an attitude of the mind and a condition of the soul that fosters a capacity to perceive the reality of the world. Pieper shows that the Greeks and medieval Europeans, understood the great value and importance of leisure. He also points out that religion can be born only in leisure -- a leisure that allows time for the contemplation of the nature of God. Leisure has been, and always will be, the first foundation of any culture. Pieper maintains that our bourgeois world of total labor has vanquished leisure, and issues a startling warning: Unless we regain the art of silence and insight, the ability for non-activity, unless we substitute true leisure for our hectic amusements, we will destroy our culture -- and ourselves.

Subjects: Cults, Philosophy, Leisure, Love, God, worship and love, Culture

More by Josef Pieper

Books like this

Popular books of similar length