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sarakomo 's review for:
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
by Jenny Odell
2022: Okay so I liked this, but it was so meandering that I was left feeling like I wasn't sure what to make of it.
The book has a lot more of an academic quality to it than I was expecting / than the marketing for it led me to believe. It was really good, don't get me wrong, but you might be spending more time reading quotes and looking at the bibliography that you expect going into it. However, it wasn't quite strong enough in its thesis for me to view it solely as an academic book. The conclusions that Odell draws are not firm; she acknowledges her privilege, but ultimately gives a shrug and says I guess it is what it is! This book is not here to convince you to break up with your phone; conversely, Odell wants us to be more mindful every second of every day. Be intentional with your choices and your time.
One of the best parts of this book are the references - from [a:John Muir|5297|John Muir|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1398092241p2/5297.jpg] to [a:Jia Tolentino|17276202|Jia Tolentino|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1558457852p2/17276202.jpg] to [a:Robin Wall Kimmerer|49921|Robin Wall Kimmerer|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1441041257p2/49921.jpg] to [a:David Foster Wallace|4339|David Foster Wallace|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1615507112p2/4339.jpg] this book notes several authors that I've read over the past couple of years. I feel extremely confident that I can take the other books referenced that I haven't read yet and prioritize them on my TBR (most notably, I want to get my hands on Rebecca Solnit's [b:A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster|6444492|A Paradise Built in Hell The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster|Rebecca Solnit|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347471802l/6444492._SY75_.jpg|6634525] ASAP). I love when reading a book makes me feel connected, like the author and I have shared the same reading list at some point.
Odell talks about going on "reading retreats" which I wholeheartedly also endorse, and actually, I should get on setting one of those up for the upcoming winter season.... Also, it was very fun reading about her exploring the Elkhorn Slough during her retreat, as I just left Monterey and spent all of last year doing just the same exploration! It was also great reading about all of this while I was on vacation - specifically, I was sitting in a park in Vienna reading about how beneficial spending time in nature is. I definitely feel like I have a lot of takeaways from this book, primarily about how to carve out more time for one's actually desired activities.
The book has a lot more of an academic quality to it than I was expecting / than the marketing for it led me to believe. It was really good, don't get me wrong, but you might be spending more time reading quotes and looking at the bibliography that you expect going into it. However, it wasn't quite strong enough in its thesis for me to view it solely as an academic book. The conclusions that Odell draws are not firm; she acknowledges her privilege, but ultimately gives a shrug and says I guess it is what it is! This book is not here to convince you to break up with your phone; conversely, Odell wants us to be more mindful every second of every day. Be intentional with your choices and your time.
One of the best parts of this book are the references - from [a:John Muir|5297|John Muir|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1398092241p2/5297.jpg] to [a:Jia Tolentino|17276202|Jia Tolentino|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1558457852p2/17276202.jpg] to [a:Robin Wall Kimmerer|49921|Robin Wall Kimmerer|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1441041257p2/49921.jpg] to [a:David Foster Wallace|4339|David Foster Wallace|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1615507112p2/4339.jpg] this book notes several authors that I've read over the past couple of years. I feel extremely confident that I can take the other books referenced that I haven't read yet and prioritize them on my TBR (most notably, I want to get my hands on Rebecca Solnit's [b:A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster|6444492|A Paradise Built in Hell The Extraordinary Communities That Arise in Disaster|Rebecca Solnit|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1347471802l/6444492._SY75_.jpg|6634525] ASAP). I love when reading a book makes me feel connected, like the author and I have shared the same reading list at some point.
Odell talks about going on "reading retreats" which I wholeheartedly also endorse, and actually, I should get on setting one of those up for the upcoming winter season.... Also, it was very fun reading about her exploring the Elkhorn Slough during her retreat, as I just left Monterey and spent all of last year doing just the same exploration! It was also great reading about all of this while I was on vacation - specifically, I was sitting in a park in Vienna reading about how beneficial spending time in nature is. I definitely feel like I have a lot of takeaways from this book, primarily about how to carve out more time for one's actually desired activities.