Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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41 of 42 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Buy this and prevent a heart attack, 9 April 2007
Considering Tom Hodgkinson is editor of the Idler and places being idle as a life aim he's not exactly workshy when it comes to research for this book. All around us we see stressed out workers competing for the best parking space, snatching at every opportunity and consuming with a vigour that would put most drug addicts to shame - Hodgkinson, with a broad sword that takes in medieval merrymaking and our 21st century tax burden (higher now than in fuedal times according to the author) puts forward an almost unarguable point that we all need to slow down, consume less, laugh more and stop striving for the next big thing. As most people deep down know this to be true it took "How to Be Free" for me to finally stop and, like being gently slapped in the face with the fish of happiness and quit rushing around like an idiot. It's rare for books to actually stop you in your tracks (The Corporation - Bakan, Stupid White Men - Moore, The Culture of Fear - Glassner, How Mumbo Jumbo Conquered the World - Wheen) but I was the road rage, drag the dog around the park, five meetings a day, make more money screaming bundle of stress that somehow defines modern man. How to Be Free points to an alternative way of life that drags the absurdity of this modern capitalist lifestyle out into the bright sunshine and stabs it repeatedly with his observations, facts and comparisons. Buy this book or alternatively, on Tom Hodgkinsons advice, buy a ukulele .. or was it a banjo. Buy two, one for yourself and one for someone you know who screams at cyclists.
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50 of 52 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Right and Wrong, 28 Aug 2007
I think that Tom is right about the sickness (money-driven society) but
is wrong about the remedy.
It is a pity he presents some of his more radical solutions very early in the book,
which might offend readers before they are ready to agree with him on the
sickness.
I already found some of his remedies myself to get free
(no car, no watch, no mortgage, no debts, no money-sucking hobbies),
so I really agree with him in many ways about the problem.
But many of his solutions are not applicable in large.
How many people can collect free firewood in the woods
before the woods are out of wood - that solution "wood" simply not work ;-)
If the book would stick to the small solutions I would like to give it
away to other people.
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46 of 48 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An essential read!, 17 Aug 2007
I found this book by chance, really - I needed a third book for a '3 for 2' offer in the bookshop, and it had a particularly attractive title. At first I thought that it would just be another of those useless books that claims to be able to 'change your life for the better,' or that he was another author attempting to make a quick buck from a lot of worthless twaddle. But once I'd started reading it, I realised how wrong I was.
Tom Hodgkinson essentially looks at modern society - decides it's all utter nonsense - and then presents you with a laid-back, enjoyable and free way to live life. He rants and raves about how rubbish the world is nowadays, his train of thought twisting and dancing as you turn the pages; but it's all true - and it really is enlightening.
While I don't argue that it's possible for everyone to follow his instructions for life (how would society achieve advancements in science, medicine, the arts etc if we all relaxed and tended our allotments?) I seriously recommend you read it, as it offers - at the very least - a new and freer way of looking at life.
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