{"product_id":"2940169380965","title":"The Art of the Wasted Day","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eA spirited inquiry into the lost value of leisure and daydream\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003ci\u003eThe Art of the Wasted Day\u003c\/i\u003e 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 eighteenth-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 Montaigneamp;mdash;the hero of this bookamp;mdash;who retreated from court life to sit in his chateau tower and write about whatever passed through his mind, thus inventing the personal essay.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eHampl'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 loveamp;mdash;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.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eThe real job of being human, Hampl finds, is getting lost in thought, something only leisure can provide. \u003ci\u003eThe Art of the Wasted Day\u003c\/i\u003e is a compelling celebration of the purpose and appeal of letting go.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eCover Illustration © 2018 Peter Sis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Penguin Random House","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47156309590256,"sku":"2940169380965","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/2940169380965_p0.jpg?v=1763781032","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/2940169380965","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}