Waiting for the Weekend by Witold Rybczynski; Unabridged MP3 Audio Book; Narrator Wanda McCaddon

“We work,” Aristotle wrote, “in order to have leisure.” Today, this is still true. But is the leisure that Aristotle spoke of—the freedom to do nothing—the same as the leisure we look forward to each weekend?

There have always been breaks from the routine of work—taboo days, market days, public festivals, holy days—we couldn’t survive without them. In Waiting for the Weekend, Witold Rybczynski unfolds the history and evolution of leisure time in Western civilization, from Aristotle, through the Middle Ages, to the present. Along the way, he explores how the psychological needs that leisure time seeks to fulfill have changed as the nature of work has changed.

“An enchanting, strikingly profound meditation on the relationship between leisure and labor.”—Publishers Weekly

“With immense learnedness but an equivalent lightness and grace, Rybczynski…offers a companionable ramble along a winding pathway of cultural history in a quiet and thinking book, a kind of intellectual browse that's—well, perfect for a leisurely weekend's reading.”—Kirkus Reviews

"This witty, readable, well-researched study…is certain to stimulate thinking. Recommended for general collections as well as history, sociology, business, and urban studies."—Library Journal

Witold Rybczynski has written about architecture for the New York Times, Time, the Atlantic, the New Yorker, and Slate, and is the author of the award-winning A Clearing in the Distance. He is the recipient of the National Building Museum’s 2007 Vincent Scully Prize. He lives with his wife in Philadelphia, where he teaches at the University of Pennsylvania School of Design.

Wanda McCaddon began recording books for the fledgling audiobook industry in the early 1980s and has since narrated well over six hundred titles for major audio publishers, as well as abridging, narrating, and coproducing classic titles for her own company, Big Ben. Audiobook listeners may be familiar with her voice under one of her two "nom de mikes," Donada Peters and Nadia May. The recipient of an Audie nomination and twenty-five Earphones Awards, AudioFile magazine has named her one of recording's Golden Voices. Wanda also appears regularly on the professional stage in the San Francisco Bay Area.