The important business of idle loafing
Alain Corbin describes how rest, once seen as a prelude to eternal life, began to assume a therapeutic quality in the 19th century, as a guard against burnout and a cure for TB
All work and no play is dulling our senses
Ancient Greek philosophers reckoned that life was all about free time, but 16th-century puritanism dealt a blow to the old festive culture from which we’ve never fully recovered
What Jacob Rees-Mogg gets wrong about the four day week
Jacob Rees-Mogg, the former business secretary, has attacked the good people of South Cambridgeshire District Council for introducing a four…
Don’t listen to Johann Hari to help your attention span
In 1887, Friedrich Nietzsche made a complaint about the modern world, writing in The Gay Science: Even now one is…
The beauty of the ampersand and other keyboard symbols
This is such a great idea: a book with one short essay per punctuation mark or typographical symbol. Of course,…
Of course Boris Johnson should take an afternoon nap
Does Boris Johnson take an afternoon nap? Yes, according to a Downing Street insider who told the Times today that…
Gazing heavenwards: the medieval monks who mapped the planetary motions
We can probably blame George and Ira Gershwin. It was that brilliant duo who, in 1937, penned the memorable lyric…
Nothing doing
There is a long and noble history of books about doing nothing. In the 5th century bc the sage Lao…
