Doing Nothing: A History of Loafers, Loungers, Slackers and Bums in America
Tom Lutz, . . Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25 (363pp) ISBN 978-0-86547-650-9
Lutz eases readers into this sparkling cultural history of stylish American torpor with an anecdote about his 18-year-old son, Cody, moving into his house and bivouacking on the couch—perhaps indefinitely. Lutz himself spent a decade before college "wandering here and abroad," so his intense anger at Cody surprised him—and inspired him to write this book about the crashing fault lines between Anglo-America's vaunted Calvinist work ethic and its skulking, shrugging love of idling. An English professor who admits to being personally caught between these warring impulses, Lutz (
Reviewed on: 02/13/2006
Genre: Nonfiction
Open Ebook - 384 pages - 978-1-4299-7806-4
Paperback - 384 pages - 978-0-86547-737-7