How To Do Nothing

This is less of the self help book it's presented as than it is a social criticism of social media and it's impact on our lives. The author has thought deeply on the role of attention in our lives and discusses various historical events and pieces of art that help her to develop her thesis. The end result is a book that certainly makes you feel a bit smarter, encourages a more humane and collectivist approach to life, but also contains a streak of nihilism that makes it a bitter pill to swallow. It's academic nature makes it a bit of a tough read, but I think it was worth the effort.

Odell is an artist and thinker who seamlessly threads together disparate ideas to create a philosophy of 21st Century sustainable living. This book's strongest element is its richness of sources. Drawing from historians, contemporary subcultures, philosophers and artists, How to Do Nothing is a well-structured roadmap for resistant activism without withdrawal from society.

Odell is energetic, using examples from her own life and stories from many others' to synthesise this in a book that is thoroughly researched. She argues for actively choosing to move against the presented myth of progress mostly by learning attentiveness and engagement. Some of the language uses distracting modern slang that would suit a blog or a conversation, but weakens the poignancy of Odell's otherwise thoughtful arguments, but this is a small negative in an otherwise hopeful book.

This book was excellent! It's a 4.5 stars for me. I really enjoyed how Jenny touches complicated topics with great lightness. It's thought provoking and I will be thinking about the book for a good while. I also was super judgemental of bird watching in the past and I caught myself watching the birds in my backyard with a whole new light. So I think this book achieved the author's intent.

It's not a 5 stars because I think the book gets a little lost in itself at times but definitely recommend reading it.

PS: I rarely write reviews but this one deserves better ratings in my opinion. I think it's easy to read, covers great topics and I really enjoyed how Jenny weaves her experiences to highlight them. Read this with friends!

Maybe too philosophical to my taste. Although the title book starts with "How to..." it's not really a manual. It's more like an exposition of the author's memories and her musings about art. Art like a critic of the status quo. There is a lot of talk about art. It was not my cup of tea.

Exhaustive and academic in style, it still manages to move at a brisk pace. I don't agree with every single argument, but it's great to learn some of the established language around topics I have been turning over in my head. Given its scope, I'm guessing it "pairs well" with many other books, but I kept thinking about three recent reads while reading this: "Fall, or: Dodge in Hell" by Stephenson, "Permutation City" by Egan, and "The Circle" by Eggers. The first two deal with identity, context, and bioregionalism from a tech-forward standpoint, and the latter deals with complete context collapse (a society in which rather than do nothing, everybody does everything all the time).

Putting this aside for now. I keep thinking, "Well that was a lot of words not saying much." I'm half-way through it so maybe it'll add up to something. So far it reads like an all-over-the-map academic hippy manifesto without benefit of an editor. I'll probably be accused of "not getting it" and so be it.