Slow is Beautiful: New Visions of Community, Leisure and Joie de Vivre (Paperback)

~ Cecile Andrews (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

We're hammered, we're slammed, we're out of control. Happiness is on the decline in the most affluent country in the world, and Americans are troubled by the destructiveness of a lifestyle devoted to money and status. Yet no one seems to have a clue how to exit from the fast lane.

Slow is Beautiful analyzes the subtle consumer and political and corporate forces stamping the joy from our existence and provides a vision of a more fulfilling life through the rediscovery of caring community, unhurried leisure, and life-affirming joie de vivre. The book discusses:

The frantic time poverty plaguing everyone-a poverty that is being challenged by the growing slow life movement whose message is reverberating around the world
The need to build a culture of connection with both people and the planet by challenging the consumer society and re-creating vibrant life in our local communities
The creation of a different experience of time where we live life in slower, more reflective ways, savoring our lives and recapturing exuberance and laughter

Offering inspiration and concrete ideas, Slow is Beautiful will appeal to a broad audience of baby boomers nearing retirement, harried professionals with a social conscience, the one-time "middle class," and twenty- to thirty-somethings who are now facing the sobering realities of constricted choices.

About the Author

Cecile Andrews is a community educator, author of Circle of Simplicity, and contributor to several books on living more simply and taking back our time. She has a doctorate from Stanford and teaches at Seattle University. She and her husband are founders of Seattle's Phinney Ecovillage, a neighborhood-based sustainable community.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: New Society Publishers (October 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865715548
• ISBN-13: 978-0865715547
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #366,785 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

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

By	Patricia Nicholson "seasoned fundraiser" (Burlingame, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Living slow in TN, November 19, 2006

By	P. McIntosh "pura vida" (Smokey Mountains) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

11 of 14 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

By	Bill Jensen "Colorado Kid" - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.