Slow is Beautiful: New Visions of Community, Leisure and Joie de Vivre

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Cecile Andrews is a community educator, author of Circle of Simplicity, and contributor to several books on living more simply and taking back our time. She has a doctorate from Stanford and teaches at Seattle University. She and her husband are founders of Seattle's Phinney Ecovillage, a neighborhood-based sustainable community.

Speed kills--slow saves: how we can recapture a life of joy, leisure, community, and well-being. Were hammered, were slammed, were 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 and 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 re-creating 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 twenty- to thirty-somethings who are now facing the sobering realities of constricted choices.

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