As Oscar Wilde said, doing nothing is hard work. The Protestant work ethic has most of us in its thrall, and the idlers of this world have the odds stacked against them. This book presents us with a laid-back argument for a contract between routine and chaos, an argument for experiencing life to the full and living in the moment.

Tom Hodgkinson was born in 1968. Since founding the Idler in 1993, he has been a frequent contributor to many newspapers and magazines and appears regularly on TV and radio to discuss 'idler' issues. This is his first book.