The Art of the Wasted Day

By: Patricia Hampl

Narrated by: Patricia Hampl

A spirited inquiry into the lost value of leisure and daydream

The Art of the Wasted Day 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 Montaigne--the hero of this book--who retreated from court life to sit in his chateau tower and write about whatever passed through his mind, thus inventing the personal essay.

Hampl'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 love--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.

The real job of being human, Hampl finds, is getting lost in thought, something only leisure can provide. The Art of the Wasted Day is a compelling celebration of the purpose and appeal of letting go.

Cover Illustration © 2018 Peter Sis

Poetically Evocative, Exquisitely Narrated!

I thoroughly enjoyed listening to The Art of the Wasted Day. The author reads her own work with precision and authentic feeling, her voice as pleasant to hear as her carefully-chosen words are to absorb and imagine. I wasn’t surprised to learn that she calls herself a poet; she has an economy of style that she pairs with a vast and complex array of historical free-associations, conveying to the reader how very prolific her own reading has been. It would have been easy to end up with a muddle of disparate themes in writing a book such as this, but she somehow managed to keep it coherent from page one to the very last word. I highly recommend this book!!

Beauty meditative book full of insight and inspiration

Patricia Hampl does an amazing job usual of tackling a complex subject matter, in this case the value of solitude to the writer, the thinker, and the soul. Interspersed throughout the book are wonderful vignettes about her travels, and written with great tenderness, about her life with her late husband.

Perfect Flow of Consciousness Piece

More often than not, it's my impression that author-narrations are a letdown, but in this case not only is Patricia Hampl a superb writer but also a perfect narrator. The entire book streams out fluidly like poetry as well. Her facility with words is astonishing. It's difficult to explain how this memoir/philosophical/flow of consciousness epic went straight to my heart, but it did. Usually, I'm more interested in the Sciences, but in this case, delving into her thought process was well worth the expenditure. I highly recommend it.

nine wasted hours

One of the most boring books I've ever read. Nine hours of self-absorbed stream-of-consciousness rambling by the author. A huge disappointment.

Boring

Struggled to listen. Doesn't make sense. Too predictable and lengthy. Had potential to be very good.