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The Art of the Wasted Day

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The Art of the Wasted Day

By: Patricia Hampl
Narrated by: Patricia Hampl
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About this listen

A spirited inquiry into the lost value of leisure and daydream.

The Art of the Wasted Day is a picaresque travelogue of leisure written from a lifelong enchantment with solitude. Patricia Hampl visits the homes of historic exemplars of ease who made repose a goal, even an art form. She begins with two celebrated 18th-century Irish ladies who ran off to live a life of "retirement" in rural Wales. Her search then leads to Moravia to consider the monk-geneticist, Gregor Mendel, and finally to Bordeaux for Michel Montaigne - the hero of this book - who retreated from court life to sit in his chateau tower and write about whatever passed through his mind, thus inventing the personal essay.

Hampl's own life winds through these pilgrimages, from childhood days lazing under a neighbor's beechnut tree, to a fascination with monastic life, and then to love - and the loss of that love which forms this book's silver thread of inquiry. Finally, a remembered journey down the Mississippi near home in an old cabin cruiser with her husband turns out, after all her international quests, to be the great adventure of her life.

The real job of being human, Hampl finds, is getting lost in thought, something only leisure can provide. The Art of the Wasted Day is a compelling celebration of the purpose and appeal of letting go.

©2018 Patricia Hampl (P)2018 Penguin Audio
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A shared meditation.

It was an honour to listen to Patricia read her book, sharing herself with us.
I was pleasantly and contentedly engaged from beginning to end.

I always listen @ 75% which gives the voice a dreamy quality that worked nicely this time. Puts some air around the words.

Somewhere through the narration it occurred to me that not only are we modern folk becoming more suspicious of solitude but we are losing our faith in our words. The words we trust to navigate understanding.

Patricia has inspired this Australian to waste a little more time, as well to patiently read all of Rilke and Montaigne & etc ...and see where that leads.
Thank you Patricia.

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