Not a digital detox book, which Odell says up front. She’s an artist who spends a lot of time watching birds in an Oakland rose garden, and her argument is that the attention economy is an economy, and that refusing to give it your attention is a political act rather than a self-care one. She builds it out of odd material — the Cynics, a commune that failed, bioregionalism, David Hockney, two crows that started visiting her balcony. What she wants is attention redirected rather than withdrawn: To the place you actually live, to its history, to the people and species in it. The first time I read this book, I thought it was pudding-brained. The second time, I got. Your attention is your time is your life. It matters.
How to Do Nothing