Time for Wonderlust: Planning Your Retirement Renaissance

Addressing retirees such as himself and those looking ahead to retirement, Wright devotes this curious, misleadingly titled book to examining the idea of leisure and trying to answer his own question about what “payoff” he could expect from unlimited free time. For most workers, Wright observes, their job is inextricably linked to their social standing. It’s not greed that propels people to prefer work and consumption over leisure and frugality, he writes, but “status seeking.” In fact, “more income means less free time.” Although Wright offers some suggestions for retirement planning, such as investing, hiring a financial planner, and “owning your job” (working toward self-employment), this book is definitely not the “how-to” its title implies. Instead, Wright offers an in-depth look at leisure’s history as a concept and shares his own rituals for relaxation. He goes on to discuss retirement as a time for intellectual cultivation and nurturing the “love of knowledge,” taking readers through a quick look at philosophers over the ages, from Socrates to Descartes to Nietzsche. The most actionable advice that more pragmatic readers will find is a nudge toward retirement, with Wright advising at the conclusion, “We must act now because our opportunity could end by accident, tomorrow, underneath a bus”—not exactly the most ringing encouragement, but certainly a valuable reminder that life should be treasured. [em](BookLife) [/em]