Book notes: Leisure time

Employing the same ultra-digressive approach to nonfiction that he used in his urban vermin history Rats, Robert Sullivan treats the topic of his new book, Cross Country (Bloomsbury, July 4)—the coast-to-coast drive he takes with his wife and kids every summer—as little more than a jumping-off point. Recounting one such trip, Sullivan gives brief histories of a number of things related to long-distance car travel, including the building of the national highway system, the first motel, the rise of fast food, the real-life Cannonball Run race and a full five pages on plastic coffee-cup lids. At its best, the minutia-filled account is stunning in its scope.

While Sullivan’s book celebrates the men whose labor has made driving possible, Tom Lutz’s Doing Nothing (FSG, May 25) champions those who took one look at the work world and responded, “Whatever.” As long as society has extolled the virtues of labor, Lutz observes, a shadow culture of historical figures and literary heroes have viewed it as pointless—or as an obstacle to true accomplishment. Doing Nothing explores the social conditions that led to such slacker icons as Samuel Johnson, Oscar Wilde, Jack Kerouac and George W. Bush.—Ben Goldstein