A review by mawalker1962
The Art of the Wasted Day by Patricia Hampl

4.0

The book jacket described this book at “a spirited inquiry into the lost value of leisure and daydream.” Having been an accomplished daydreamer when I was growing up and longing to learn how to allow myself more time for daydreaming and the reflection and contemplation that accompany it, I was eager to read this book. It was not quite what I was expecting, but I enjoyed it. It was partly a meditation on the nature of solitude, leisure, language, and engagement with the world. Partly it was an oblique chronicle of grief—Hampl’s husband died suddenly of heart-failure as she was writing the book. And mostly I think it was an interrogation of what constitutes a good life. Hampl doesn’t provide any sure answers—just reflections and possibilities.