These essays from the great rationalist are a pleasure to read. I'm not a fan of the analytic tradition that made Russell famous, but his later works of history and social theory earn a spot on anyone's bookshelf. This guy is the ultimate pragmatist. Some of these essays are eerily prescient, as he surveys 1930's America foreign affairs and predicts a rise of nation states and a nationalist populist uprising eventually taking grip of the country.

A short essay, turned into a book via some inflated forewords and afterwords, funny pictures and huge font. Nevertheless, the additional material was humorously written and educational, and Russell’s essay makes telling points: that we work too hard, given our actual needs and technological advancements; that we can and should use expanded leisure time in pursuit of expanding our minds (not exactly “idleness”).

The essay is fine, if dull. This edition is padded out with a lot of self-satisfied nonsense.

It's a good time to reflect on this essay

Written almost a century ago and still very much relevant today and yet (almost) nothing has changed since in regards to our work system and capitalistic order of society

The fact that this kind of thinking is still state-of-the-art anno 2021 is as peculiar as it is worrisome. This short essay should be mandatory read for anyone engaged in serious thinking about today's labour market.

I left this book desperately wanting to read more of Bertrand Russel’s work. The prologue and afterword from the author/illustrator was a good introduction to Russel from an intellectual but also personal/self-help point of view. It was a quick read that served as a jumping off point.