Customer Reviews:
 Not about idleness really February 8, 2008
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
For me, the chapters' within this book are not about idleness, nor does the humor stand the test of time, so I would hardly say that it is a classic.
The book was such a disappointment, I'm not sure I would recommend it to anyone and can't understand why it was ever brought back into print.
 IDLE YOUR TIME AWAY IN FINE STYLE December 7, 2007
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This little comic gem from the 1800`s thoroughly deserves a new edition - many comic observations such a those on babies and their parents could have been written yesterday - except the writing is of much finer quality than one would expect today!
Mick Drake author of the comic novel All`s Well at Wellwithoute.
one man in a sulk September 15, 2006
1 out of 3 found this review helpful
'Three Men in a Boat' is probably the funniest narrative in English, but if you are looking for more of the same this might come as a let-down. The reflective, melancholy strain present (but easily overlooked) in the more famous book is given pride of place here, and laughs are thin on the ground. Partly this is no doubt because the stories in the 'Three Men' books, slight and unimportant though they are, give Jerome something to hang his comic vignettes and asides on. Here, with no story at all, he can only give rein to his views on Life in General which are clearly far from rosy. His trademark jaunty style battles unsuccessfully to disguise a tendency to moroseness. These are truly the thoughts of someone with nothing to take his mind off his troubles, sitting up alone late at night and `thinking what a hollow world this is'.
As other reviewers have noted, this edition is clearly intended for the gift market - complete with pompous and utterly superfluous new `Afterword' - and if you picked it up knowing nothing about the author you could mistake it for one of those `Little Books of Wisdom' you see for sale around Christmas. It's not a classic, but I'm glad it's back in print. Incidentally, it's not really about idleness.
A bible for the idle January 21, 2006
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
I was born with a debilhitating disease. That of idleness, which, until recently, was a character trait I despised in myself. Thankfully I fell into a phase, much ongoing, of reading 19th century literature, and that is how I came across Jerome K Jerome and his wonderful book of idle thoughts.
It is very much different from any other book I have ever read, sometimes when you read a book you may feel as though your there, but with this Idle thoughts... you get the feeling Jerome is there with you, idling away the hours, discussing various points, still very much relevant today, such as tips on what to do if you find you have to pawn your watch.
It is amazing how many things I agreed with with Jerome, written over 10 decades before I was born. It was so good the very same day I bought the second installment.
Idle thoughts is a dangerous book, it will encourage you to utterly embrace idleness......
A Victorian Eddie Izzard October 31, 2004
14 out of 15 found this review helpful
I bought this book after reading the first one in the series, Virginia Woolf's The London Scene, and also after I enjoyed the revelatory, mind-altering "How to be Idle", and I wasn't disappointed. I'll be buying several more copies for Christmas presents as it's the best, most beautifully presented book I've read in ages. It was first published over 100 years ago, yet still manages to be current, touching and funny. Jerome K Jerome says in the Prologue "if you get tired of reading the best 100 books, pick up this for half an hour. It will be a change", which I thought was remarkable foresight: as it happens, Jerome's best known masterpiece, Three Men in a Boat, came in at number 101 in the BBC Big Read.
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