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$16.95 $11.00 USD
Publisher: New Society Publishers
Pub. Date: 2006-10-01
ISBN: 9780865715547
Format: Paperback - 256 pages
Size: 6" x 9" (w x h)
BISAC: HEALTH & FITNESS / Healthy Living

Slow is Beautiful

New Visions of Community, Leisure, and Joie de Vivre

We're hammered, we're slammed, we're out of control. Happiness is on the decline in the most affluent country in the world and Americans are troubled by the destructiveness of a lifestyle devoted to money and status. Yet no-one seems to have a clue how to exit from the Fast Lane...

Slow Is Beautiful analyzes the subtle consumer, political and corporate forces stamping the joy from our existence and provides a vision of a more fulfilling life through the rediscovery of caring community, unhurried leisure, and life affirming joie de vivre. The book discusses:

  • the frantic time poverty plaguing everyone-a poverty that is being challenged by the growing Slow Life movement whose message is reverberating around the world
  • the need to build a culture of connection with both people and the planet by challenging the consumer society and recreating vibrant life in our local communities
  • the creation of a different experience of time where we live life in slower, more reflective ways, savoring our lives and recapturing exuberance and laughter.

Offering inspiration and concrete ideas, Slow Is Beautiful will appeal to a broad audience of Baby Boomers nearing retirement, harried professionals with a social conscience, the one-time "middle class," and 20-30-somethings who are now facing the sobering realities of constricted choices.

About the Author

Cecile Andrews is a community educator focusing on voluntary simplicity, "take back your time," the "Sharing Economy," and Pursuit of Happiness Conversation Circles. She is the author of Slow is Beautiful, Circle of Simplicity and co-author of Less is More. She has a doctorate in education from Stanford University. Cecile is very active in the Transition Movement in the US. She and her husband are founders of Seattle's Phinney Ecovillage, a neighborhood-based sustainable community.


"Slow is Beautiful is thought-provoking — disturbing, funny, eye-opening — from the first to the very last page. Cecile Andrews has a vision for life far more compelling and rich than the toxic myths flogged by the cheerleaders of corporate consumer society. If you lead the kind of time-impoverished life so many of us do, this book will provide an antidote — dare I say it will set you free."
James O'Reilly, editor of Stories to Live By

"She's a critic...she's a comedian...she's a wise philosopher...Actually, in her new book, Slow is Beautiful, Cecile Andrews, America's sage of simplicity, is all those and more.With great personal stories, the courage of her convictions, uncommon insight and disarming wit, she challenges our "more and faster is better" society and shows how we can live better with less speed and less stuff. If this book weren't so clear and straightforwardly honest, it would be subversive, in the best sense of that word. The ideas it contains surely are. You'll be hard pressed to put it down once you start reading. But don't just read it; DO it."
John de Graaf, co-author of Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic

"Don't be fooled! In Cecile Andrew's lively mind there's nothing sluggish about thinking slow. In her new book, Slow is Beautiful, Cecile delivers hard facts, timeless wisdom and puckish humor with a punch that is passionate, personal and political. This is a compelling work: well before the last page you'll love the message and the messenger."
Peter C.Whybrow MD, Director of the Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior at UCLA, and author of
American Mania:When More is Not Enough

"Read this book. Then give it to your teenager, your dentist, your best friend and the clerk at the grocery store.With trademark lucidity and intelligence, Cecile Andrews illuminates a path out of denial and despair, into a human community of authenticity, joy, compassion and justice."
Juliet Schor, author of The Overspent American

"Despite what the title implies, Slow is Beautiful is a fast read! It will leave you plenty of time to go out and enjoy yourself as Cecile Andrews recommends, and indeed, insists on! (Although reading the book is pretty fun in itself."
Frank Levering & Wanda Urbanska, authors and producers of the "Simple Living with Wanda Urbanska" national public television series

"This book made me laugh out loud! Being with Cecile is always a good thing, and her book feels like being with her. Cecile's funny and poignant stories, combined with her research and reflection, make the case that by reweaving our lives with what we all really want — community, conviviality, and simply having more fun! — we will simultaneously help create the kind of society we all really want — one characterized by greater equity, compassion, and sustainability."
Michael Schut, Editor of the award-winning Simpler Living, Compassionate Life: A Christian Perspective


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