As we jet off on holiday, passing from airport lounge to hotel in our desperation to escape our everyday lives and find some better weather, we'd do well to ask ourselves what on earth we're doing. Do we really travel any more, or do we just arrive? The Idle Traveller calls on us all to re-assess why we travel and what travel has become.

The Art of Doing Nothing meets The Dangerous Book for Boys in this charming celebration of simple delights. In The Book of Idle Pleasures, the United Kingdom's expert Idlers Tom Hodgkinson and Dan Kieran stand up for the simple pleasures in life . . . by lying down for a nap. With its tongue firmly in its cheek, The Book of Idle Pleasures renounces our world of ever-growing consumer overload in favor of the timelessly true adage that the best things in life really are free. Clever and sometimes all too true in its reflections on 100 simple pastimes--among them slouching, skipping stones, staring out the window, doodling, and, natch, taking a nap--The Book of Idle Pleasures is a charming celebration of simple pleasures for the sake of pleasure itself, making it a soothing antidote for our nonstop culture and an ideal restorative against the costly confusion of our daily existence.

The Highway Code is Britain’s best selling non-fiction book, and in 2006 it will be exactly 75 years old. Isn’t it about time that the old codger got out of the driving seat and let the real rules of the road take over? Enter The Myway Code, the shifty, wayward offspring of the original that has priority over all oncoming vehicles and is set to drive itself to the top of the charts faster and harder than is legally appropriate. Written and laid out in a style which will be familiar to anyone who has seen, and therefore failed to read, the official book, The Myway Code puts its foot down and its finger up, as it rips up the L-plates and tears up the road like an XR3i full of feral children on alcopops.

Quick -- what's the worst, most mind-numbing, humiliating, horrendous, horrific job you can think of? They're all here. The worst jobs in the world. Firsthand accounts of one hundred horrible jobs guaranteed to make you groan, laugh, and maybe, just maybe help you feel a teensy bit better about your own place in the rat race. Painstakingly assembled by the geniuses behind the British humor magazine The Idler, this collection includes the gloriously gory details of such occupations as: hospital launderette, gas station worker, weed sprayer, bank teller, janitor's assistant, and telemarketer. It's a hilarious romp through the stinky cesspool of employment hell, with helpful commentary from those who speak of crap jobs from hard-won personal experience. So curl up with this guide and be grateful for the job you have...or grab the want ads now!

From the renowned journalist comes this intimate account of his years in the field, traveling for the first time beyond the Iron Curtain to India, China, Ethiopia, and other exotic locales. In the 1950s, Ryszard Kapuscinski finished university in Poland and became a foreign correspondent, hoping to go abroad – perhaps to Czechoslovakia. Instead, he was sent to India – the first stop on a decades-long tour of the world that took Kapuscinski from Iran to El Salvador, from Angola to Armenia. Revisiting his memories of traveling the globe with a copy of Herodotus' Histories in tow, Kapuscinski describes his awakening to the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of new environments, and how the words of the Greek historiographer helped shape his own view of an increasingly globalized world. Written with supreme eloquence and a constant eye to the global undercurrents that have shaped the last half-century, Travels with Herodotus is an exceptional chronicle of one man's journey across continents.

'Ideal for anyone looking to add a little more joy to their journeys' -- Woman's Way 'A timely exhortation to slow down and become more mindful of what has been lost by trading in analog pleasures for digital ones' -- Perceptive Travel Unlike almost every travel book, this one is not about where to go, but how to go. As our daily lives are dominated by devices and an always-connected mentality, more people are using their precious vacation time as an excuse to unplug and re-engage with their surroundings?and themselves. Away & Aware is a beautifully illustrated guide to more mindful travel, with tips and advice for planning off-the-grid trips, minimalist packing, unplugging on the road, connecting with local culture, travelling with children, and easing back into the real world after returning from a trip.

Yearning for a life of leisure? In 24 chapters representing each hour of a typical working day, this book will coax out the loafer in even the most diligent and schedule-obsessed worker. From the founding editor of the celebrated magazine about the freedom and fine art of doing nothing, The Idler, comes not simply a book, but an antidote to our work-obsessed culture. In How to Be Idle, Hodgkinson presents his learned yet whimsical argument for a new, universal standard of living: being happy doing nothing. He covers a whole spectrum of issues affecting the modern idler—sleep, work, pleasure, relationships—bemoaning the cultural skepticism of idleness while reflecting on the writing of such famous apologists for it as Oscar Wilde, Robert Louis Stevenson, Dr. Johnson, and Nietzsche—all of whom have admitted to doing their very best work in bed. It’s a well-known fact that Europeans spend fewer hours at work a week than Americans. So it’s only befitting that one of them—the very clever, extremely engaging, and quite hilarious Tom Hodgkinson—should have the wittiest and most useful insights into the fun and nature of being idle. Following on the quirky, call-to-arms heels of the bestselling Eat, Shoots and Leaves: The Zero Tolerance Approach to Punctuation by Lynne Truss, How to Be Idle rallies us to an equally just and no less worthy cause: reclaiming our right to be idle.