Recurring book
How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy
by Jenny Odell
Summary
Jenny Odell’s book is a refusal of the idea that every minute has to justify itself as output. How to Do Nothing is about attention, place, resistance, ecology, public life, and stepping away from platforms that turn urgency and performance into default states. It matters on Books For because it gives burned-out and feed-tired readers a better option than becoming indifferent: care more locally, more slowly, and with more agency over where attention goes.
“The point of doing nothing, as I define it, isn’t to return to work refreshed and ready to be more productive, but rather to question what we currently perceive as productive.”
Why it appears on Books For People Who
It belongs in the burnout, social-media fatigue and self-improvement clusters because it offers an antidote to productivity culture without asking readers to stop caring about the world.
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