{"product_id":"how-to-be-less-useful-isbn-9780593803189","title":"How to Be Less Useful","description":"\u003cb\u003eA delightful book about reclaiming pleasure in mid-life—a potent mix of self-help and memoir, from one of today’s wittiest, wisest voices.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003ci\u003e\"I have done everything right, and I have missed everything.\" \u003c\/i\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWhen did our lives become entirely about efficiency and optimization? Especially as office workers, as parents, as consumers, as exercisers and healthy eaters. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could all be less useful?\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eWith self-deprecating humor, devastating insight, and bracing honesty, Priyanka Mattoo shares her own journey toward being a less useful human, to investigate why pleasure gets back-burnered in American culture.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThink about what we choose to systematically cut out or overlook as we mature: Solo travel. Dessert. Sweaty dancing. \"Pointless\" hangs with friends. And then there are the activities that used to be fun and have somehow lost their luster, usually in the decade between 30 and 40: Cooking (ruined by exhaustion). Bad tv (the algorithm). Other humans (bandwidth)\u003ci\u003e. \u003c\/i\u003eEating at restaurants (Instagram). \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eMattoo takes on the zeitgeist, delivering invaluable, laugh-out-loud entertaining life lessons without an ounce of preachiness or pressure. She looks at where pleasure begins, what it serves, how we learn to repress it—in families, in friendships and romantic relationships, in jobs. And she shows us a way back: to identify and accept the things that give us pleasure, then to welcome them into our lives. What if, instead of being useful, we could all learn how to be happier, lighter, more present, more engaged? \u003ci\u003eHow to Be Less Useful\u003c\/i\u003e is refreshing, funny, sparklingly astute, unignorable--a book for the current moment.PRIYANKA MATTOO is a writer, filmmaker, former talent agent, and a cofounder of Earios, a women-led podcast network. She is a contributor to \u003ci\u003eThe New York Times \u003c\/i\u003eand \u003ci\u003eThe New Yorker, \u003c\/i\u003eand a recipient of a MacDowell Fellow­ship. Mattoo holds degrees in Italian and law from the University of Michigan and currently lives in Los Angeles with her husband and kids.","brand":"Knopf","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":48532154777829,"sku":"NP9780593803189","price":30.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780593803189.jpg?v=1773182861","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/es\/products\/how-to-be-less-useful-isbn-9780593803189","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}