How to Do Nothing

by Jenny Odell

Book Reviews

  • Just finished "How to do nothing" by Jenny Odell. I read this book very slowly, exploring each reference, going down rabbit holes, putting it down for days, creating a languid, almost random, path through it. Not at all what I expected, more philosophical than polemical.Link to Tweet
  • 🐦 Don't like categorising books as "work" books but strongly suggest anyone in tech read "How to Do Nothing" by @the_jennitaur. It's made me more thoughtful about what I do.Link to Tweet
  • @andrewchen The Dispossessed - Ursula K Le Guin How To Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy - Jenny OdellLink to Tweet

About Book

After the American presidental election of 2016, Jenny Odell felt so overstimunated and disoriented by information, misinformation, and the expressions of others, that reality itself seemed to slip away. How To Do Nothing is her action plan for resistance. Drawing on the ethos of tech culture, a background in the arts, and personal storytelling, Jenny Odell makes a powerful argument for refusal: refusal to believe that our lives are instruments to be optimised. She argues that nothing can be quite so radical as doing... nothing.