Idle Thoughts Of An Idle Fellow

A celebration of doing absolutely nothing, published in 1886 when the concept still carried a certain charm. Jerome K. Jerome, before he wrote Three Men in a Boat, assembled fourteen witty essays that contemplate the lost art of idleness with reverent absurdity. He muses on Sunday mornings, on being late, on the peculiar guilt of doing nothing when society insists you should be doing something. The humor is gentle and self-deprecating, the kind that admits one's own follies before pointing out the follies of others. These are observations about ordinary life rendered extraordinary through the lens of someone who has thought far too much about why we work so hard to avoid thinking at all. It is perfect for readers who have ever felt exhausted by productivity culture and long for permission to simply be idle. Jerome writes with the warmth of a friend who understands your exhaustion and wants to tell you it is perfectly okay to sit and stare out the window.