With regards to this book it is more about the advised philosophy than the strength of the writing. I picked this up because I was interested in the Slow Movement. One of my favourite subjects was that of time, the opening subject, which started off well with the following paragraph - What is the very first thing you do in the morning? Draw the curtains? Roll over to snuggle with your partner or pillow? Spring out of bed and do ten push ups to get the blood pumping? No, the first thing you do, the first thing everyone does, is check the time. Page 17.

In my opinion it was one of the strongest subjects and made me think about my own relationship with time.

"Boredom - the word itself hardly existed 150 years ago - is a modern invention." This sentence really made me stop and think. 'I'm bored' is a term I have heard with increasing frequency each year. I only have to think back to when I was a child, and how the more technology developed and the less time we spent outdoors, the more bored we got, and to look at my young cousins now who are glued to their DS's which once the battery dies have absolutely no idea how to amuse themselves. It seems we have all forgotten how to slow down and simply be alive rather than constantly trying to maintain a state of hyper stimulation.


"Thanks to speed we live in the age of rage."
This rang truer for me than I would like to admit. I'm embarrassed to think of all the times I have huffed and puffed and gotten angry just by getting stuck in traffic or if I have to line up somewhere for more than a minute, not to mention if my Internet is lagging, having obviously completely forgotten what it was like when the first modem came out...When I think back on all the times I have gotten angry, most of it has been over nothing. Really. What does it matter if you have to wait a few minutes? After reading this I changed my ways. I know longer mind waiting. Instead I do some deep breathing, day dream about the newest hunk on True Blood or simply have a gander at what is going on in the world around me - birds finding twigs, children playing games, a leaf dancing on the wind etc. Slowing down has made me happier and calmer.

What I didn't like about this book was the chapter on music; it dragged on far too long and was very repetitive. Some chapters too suffered from repetition.

I also lost respect for the author on the chapter of Tantric sex. It might be a personal bias, but I could not understand how he could go back to the second class WITHOUT HIS WIFE. He went on to say, that although he performed the night's exercises with another woman (including touching her in places to see how pleasurable it was for her etc) it was all completely innocent. I mean honestly, he couldn't skip one night and wait until the next to go back with his wife to experience non-sex-induced orgasms??

After that I didn't really enjoy hearing his personal slant on everything and would have preferred he stay neutral and merely inform me of the different fields of the Slow Movement. ( )

I’m always conscious of time—and I envy creative people like musicians, writers and artists who can place themselves in the flow and losethemselves. I envy them because I so rarely get there myself. But I’ve been trying. See, I have a problem with time management. Not that I’m disorganized but I’m always trying to fit more in so I can do it all. As a result I’ve read probably every time management book under the sun. In the eighties I had my Time Planner, and now I live by my todo lists, and weekly, quarterly and annual goals. I’ve learned to be efficient and I’m always looking for ways to cut corners on the things that don’t matter to me so I can spend more time on the things that do.

So I’ve really been looking forward to reading In Praise of Slowness because I am the target demographic. A number of years ago I read John de Graff’s book Take Back Your Time and it changed my life. It opened my eyes to how we overwork ourselves in the United States. One of my favorite posters on his organization’s site is a cartoon that says, “Medieval Peasants Worked Less Than You Do.” I even attended one of their conferences. It was right after the economy crashed and they were struggling with how we could possibly get a minimum vacation law passed now. How sad!

In Praise of Slowness is a great book. It focuses on the Slow movement started in Italy and profiles areas where people are deciding enough is enough, work isn’t all there is, and it is time to get off the treadmill and enjoy life. The author, Carl Honore profiles ways people are taking back their lives through and choosing a more leisurely route through food, urban planning, mind/body, medicine, sex, work, leisure, and the over scheduled child.

I’m not exactly about to start cooking several hours a day, but I’ll be glad to eat any meals my friends choose to make and spend an evening with them. In fact, I did that last Friday. I went to a friend’s house and I made a new salad recipe while she and her partner bbqed. We drank wine while the kids went crazy running around the backyard. I left with a full belly and my kid fell asleep in the car on the way home. I need more nights like that. And that is something I’m working on—I’m currently working on building my support network in the real world and making more time for friends and family.

If you think your life is stressful and there isn’t enough time in the day, then please read this book. Pick an area or two, and then focus on how you can slow down. (And if you choose food, please invite me over). Then read de Graaf’s book Take Back Your Time and look for how we can change the work world to make it better. And then learn how to stop being a slave to technology by reading Be Excellent at Everything.
( )

True to the name, the writing is slow to get to the point and the thoughts jump around from paragraph to paragraph. Its obvious that Honore did a lot of research, but not all of it has to be in every sentence. ( )

So, opposing the ideology of this book, I finished it in two days. It was pretty good, I enjoyed it quite a bit. The underlying message also resonates with me since I don't like to rush, but I do like to be on time for things. This causes me to be under the thumb of Father Time more often than I would like.

The main thesis and idea of this book is that we are too obsessed with going as fast as possible; getting as much done in as short a time as we can. This is the plague of Western Culture, ever since the invention of sundials and clocks we started to be ruled by time, always consulting it. Everything people do is built around a schedule and since clocks became more accurate and vehicles became faster it has only gotten worse. With the invention of the internet and cell phone technology, now some people can't even go home to get away from their work. The author tells us that this is all very bad, since stress related hospital stays and illnesses are on the rise. Even healthcare is not immune to this, since there are so many patients to so few doctors. All in all this adds up to really terrible lifestyle choices and other things. So the author thinks to himself that he would like to try doing some things slowly and see how it goes. This is all brought on because he was thinking that really short 60-second bedtime stories were a good idea.

I thought this book could help me out with my obsession for going faster, and in it's own way it has. There are a number of suggestions that I could follow from the book, and going slower really does seem beneficial in the long run. It results in less stress and more satisfaction in life. In one chapter the author mentions the two systems of thinking and how the slower one is more creative and in-depth.

Generally I read books to become a better person, a more optimal version of myself. However, maybe I can do it without reading books so quickly. For instance, I couldn't remember the titles of the other books that I had read this year. Sure I could remember some of them, but not all of them. Perhaps I need to reevaluate how I take in information.

Or not. I probably won't act on any of this book's advice, but it was really interesting and gave me a lot of food for thought. Besides, I could always revisit this site to see what I had read. ( )

I was a bit skeptical at first, and honestly, some of the chapters did seem to wrap up a bit too neatly. HOWEVER, it's a thought provoking book, and has certainly changed my driving habits.