Carl Honorè
Honorè starts this book by recounting how he came to be interested in writing about time and the Slow movement. While waiting for a plane, he read an article in the paper about a series of new one minute bedtime stories. He gleefully thought to himself how he could whip through story time with his son in less than ten minutes and get to watching the news. Fortunately, he came to his senses and realized how skewed his perspective on time was.
Those of you with a co-op in your area have probably heard of the slow food movement – the idea that food is better and better for you when it is cooked from scratch, rather than prefab, and that people are happier and healthier having long meals together. This slow movement has spread to all other areas of life. HonorÈ covers the biggies – food, mind/body, exercise, sex, travel, work and talks a bit about various founders of slow movements in each of these areas.
While the slow time movement does not encourage people to do everything slowly, it does focus on enjoying life and a slower pace and its benefits. The author points out, and rightly so, that our insatiable desire for greater speeds in everything is making us a sick, exhausted culture. We have no time for enjoyment or health, no time to use our vast resources and that often we sabotage ourselves by rushing so much that we need to redo all the work we frantically pumped out. I hear there is an abridged version of the book coming out soon too. Kidding, kidding!