#20 in Technology & IT
How to Do Nothing
- 256
- Pages
- about 4.5 h
- Reading time
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Our view
“How to Do Nothing” looks like self-help and turns out to be an argument about attention, place and politics. Odell moves between personal essay, philosophy and social criticism, with long detours into birdwatching and contemporary art. Some readers say it changed what they give their time to; others find its refusal to settle into one kind of book irritating. Anyone hoping for a manual has the wrong title in hand.
The view of the BookRank editors, written from readers’ ratings and comments. It does not affect the score or the book’s place in a ranking.
About the book
A New York Times Bestseller NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY: Time • The New Yorker • NPR • GQ • Elle • Vulture • Fortune • Boing Boing • The Irish Times • The New York Public Library • The Brooklyn Public Library "A complex, smart and ambitious book that at first reads like a self-help manual, then blossoms into a wide-ranging political manifesto."—Jonah Engel Bromwich, The New York Times Book Review One of President Barack Obama's "Favorite Books of 2019" Porchlight's Personal Development & Human Behavior Book of the Year In a world where addictive technology is designed to buy and sell our attention, and our value is determined by our 24/7 data productivity, it can seem impossible to escape. But in this inspiring field guide to dropping out of the attention economy, artist and critic Jenny Odell shows us how we can still win back our lives. Odell sees our attention as the most precious—and overdrawn—resource we have. And we must actively and continuously choose how we use it. We might not spend it on things that capitalism has deemed important … but once we can start paying a new kind of attention, she writes, we can undertake bolder forms of political action, reimagine humankind’s role in the environment, and arrive at more meaningful understandings of happiness and progress.
Where the score comes from
The sources average 7.3 across 296 ratings — not yet many, so the reader vote carries 67% of the weight and the rest pulls toward the Technology & IT average of 8.1. That is how 7.6 comes out.
| Source | Average | Ratings | Weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Open Library | 8.0 | 25 | 8% |
| Hardcover | 7.2 | 271 | 92% |
In this book
Themes this book shares with others — each leads to the best books on it.
If you liked this
Same shelf — Technology & IT — with scores between 8.0 and 8.2, closest to this book.
