Tom Hodgkinson with a few highlights from our latest edition – available now

Our new issue has arrived and is available by subscription, on the newsstand or direct from us. It’s a very summery edition. Alice Smith has produced a beautiful cover featuring Greek god Hermes, fleet of foot, on a skateboard, holding a fountain pen. This reflects the wide range of edifying materials to be found within our pages.

We’ve got a lovely interview with Alexander McCall Smith, the amazingly productive and philosophically positive author. Stephen Bayley writes on his passionate hatred of hanging around and waiting. We go to Phoenix, Arizona for a conference devoted to slow skateboarding.

Megumi Koiwai, a young person, writes on the exquisite hell of job hunting in Japan, and Guy Standing presents a manifesto for a revolution in education that takes inspiration from the Ancient Greeks.

Plus, Mark Vernon finds that “The Owl and the Pussycat” has much to say as a work of self-help, and Lydia Lunch tackles your problems.

I hope you have a very idle summer.

Live well,
Tom

PS We’ve now finished getting ready a great online course on the Stoics – by me! It’s called “How the Stoics Can Help You Get Happy”, consists of six talks with lots of images, and will be released next week. Available to all Idler Academy members.

PPS I am now taking a break from these newsletters. Your next instalment will be on Thursday 3 September, going online the next day.

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How to Live Like a Stoic

The August-September 2026 issue of the Idler (#111) is available in Waitrose, Smiths and TG Jones.

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