11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Here's to the slow life: Andrews nails it!, January 9, 2007
This review is from: Slow is Beautiful: New Visions of Community, Leisure and Joie de Vivre (Paperback)
This book offers compelling and contemporary commentary on the ubiquitous, rampant, relentless drive to consume in America ...and the resulting time impoverishment in so many of our lives. Andrews shows how our life/work merry-go-rounds have spun out of control. Accelerated by the information age, spurred on by the corporate culture, many of us who are rushed, stressed, and separated from our true selves perceive no way to get off.
Through research and witty descriptions of her own experiences, Andrews reveals how an obsession with professional status and commercial/material success can be antithetical to joyful living. She peels back the shallow surface of these cherished "values" and exposes them as surface intoxications, spurred by corporate culture -- and ultimately unsustainable. This builds her compelling case for the often repeated (but hitherto unheeded) message: personal happiness is more likely to emerge via simplicity than via complexity.... more likely to emerge via community than via self promotion.
For most of us to slow down, we need to make priorities adjustments and philosophy shifts, and we need to acquire new habits. Fortunately, Andrews' vision offers numerous alternatives and antidotes to the greed trap and the speed trap, reminding us that, with sufficient creativity, the choice of how to live is really ours. And when we do slow down, Andrews convincingly concludes, we can be effective members of a "subversive" (slow) counterculture. This burgeoning community will, with sufficient time, wield powerful influences....and powerful delights.
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16 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Living slow in TN, November 19, 2006
This review is from: Slow is Beautiful: New Visions of Community, Leisure and Joie de Vivre (Paperback)
This book confirmed all my reasons for leaving the big city and raising my family in the country. It is too bad the author has to thrust her political views on the reader. Views that have nothing to do with slow living. I even gave the book to friends and they said her political ranting ruined the book for them. This is too bad because it is a wonderful book full of life changing advice and insightful quotes. I would have given it 5 stars if she had left out her personal hatred (which conflicts with her version of slow living), of certain political ideas. I found it hard to believe in the beauty of the book when it was filled with such negativity.
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14 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Slow is Beautiful: New Visions of Community, Leisure and Joie de Vivre, January 17, 2007
This review is from: Slow is Beautiful: New Visions of Community, Leisure and Joie de Vivre (Paperback)
I picked up this book because it sounded like something that EVERYONE should read. We definitely need to slow down, become involved in our communities and bring more happiness back into our lives. What I was subjected to in this book, however, was the author's political rants about how Conservatives have ruined this country! I'm an independent and I actually felt sorry for any conservative who might be reading this book - it was harsh. We are ALL a part of the problem, which makes us ALL a part of the solution. She does have some great quotes and some ideas that sound good no matter what your political party may be - hence the two stars. The joy is hidden in the vitriol in this book.
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