Waiting for the Weekend

Rating:
Summary: food for the mind
Review: I thought it was a great summer reading book to keep your mind level headed and not out in space twenty-four seven. It places facts into your mind and leaves room for open thought. You might ponder questions from this writing for hours. A great book for discussion with friends. Two thumbs up!!

Rating:
Summary: food for the mind
Review: In an overall sense, this is an outstanding book. Rybczynski, has an ability to force the reader to think about life situations normally taken for granted. In, Waiting for the Weekend, the author looks at several angles concerning the ideas of the "weekend" and "leisure". After reading this book, I will never look at leisure the way I did in the past. This is not the type of book to read if the reader does not want to be challenged. Rybczynski's writing style is thorough, witty, and informative. This is a worthwhile book.

Rating:
Summary: Outstanding book - very worthwhile
Review: In an overall sense, this is an outstanding book. Rybczynski, has an ability to force the reader to think about life situations normally taken for granted. In, Waiting for the Weekend, the author looks at several angles concerning the ideas of the "weekend" and "leisure". After reading this book, I will never look at leisure the way I did in the past. This is not the type of book to read if the reader does not want to be challenged. Rybczynski's writing style is thorough, witty, and informative. This is a worthwhile book.

Rating:
Summary: A thought provoking essay
Review: This delightful shortish (234 pages) book is a sort of rambling essay on first the development of the seven day week and the two day weekend (which unlike the 365 day year, the 30 day month and the 24 hour day, are not dictated by celestial phenomena) and then on the rise of leisure.

Rybczynski provides many interesting facts: where the names of the days come from; how the Depression led to shorter workdays; that Henry Ford was one of the early advocates of shorter work hours because he foresaw that workers would be better consumers if they had more free time, etc.

It also raises several fascinating arguments: that thanks to automation and specialization in the workplace, most of us probably require greater skills in our leisure pursuits than in our jobs (one inevitably thinks of Chuck's 4 handicap); that the recent increase in folks average hours of work is a result of the rise of leisure, most 40 hour jobs will pay for life's necessities, the increased hours pay for vacation houses, country club memberships, boats, etc..

It all makes for a very diverting & thought-provoking entertainment.