Carl Honoré is a best-selling author and journalist based in London. Since 1991, he has written from all over Europe and South America, spending three years in Buenos Aires along the way. His work has appeared in publications on both sides of the Atlantic, including The Economist, The Observer, National Post, Globe and Mail, Houston Chronicle, and Miami Herald. He is best known for his advocacy of the Slow Movement. A loose and international effort by the harried and haggard to decelerate the pace of their lives, the Slow Movement spans everything from telecommunications (slow email) and health care (slow medicine) to diet (slow food) and public space (slow cities).
Honoré’s international best-selling book In Praise of Slowness plots the lineage of our speed-obsessed society; while it recognizes the difficulty of slowing down, it also highlights the successes of everyday people around the world who have found ways of doing it. Honoré traces his “Aha” moment to his son’s bedtime, when Honoré would race through storybooks – skipping pages, reading portions of a paragraph – to move things along. (He’s since reformed.) He is also the author of Under Pressure: How the Epidemic of Hyper-Parenting Is Endangering Childhood (HarperOne) which exposes the dangers of our obsession with raising Alpha children and how to rethink both being a parent and child in our modern world. In his most recent book, The Slow Fix: Solve Problems, Work Smarter, and Live Better in a World Addicted to Speed (HarperOne), Honoré delivers an exhilarating model for effective problem-solving, and provides brilliant insights on how you can solve problems, work smarter, and live better.
On top of a busy schedule of broadcasting and public speaking in North America and Europe, Honoré regularly lectures at universities and takes part in debates and panels across the globe. He has been described by ABC News as “the unofficial godfather of a growing cultural shift toward slowing down.” Newsweek called him “an international spokesman for the concept of leisure.”
An engaging, incisive and humorous speaker, Honoré builds a compelling case for slowing down as a way to live, work and play better in the fast-paced modern world.
He lives in London with his wife, who is also a writer, and their two children. His neighborhood is such a magnet for young families that it has earned the nickname “Nappy Valley.” On Saturday morning, it’s pram gridlock in the market.
Praise for Carl Honoré and In Praise of Slowness:
"Carl Honoré spoke at the 2010 International Society for the Performing Arts Congress in New York and brought his groundbreaking thinking about our pathology around time to several hundred arts leaders from around the world. Mr. Honore's witty presentation was intellectually stimulating, highly entertaining, and forced us all to look at how we think about the invisible force that rules our lives: time. Encompassing world history, sociological observation, and a journalist's eye for accurate detail, his talk was the unquestioned highlight of our conference this year."
—Russell Willis Taylor, President and CEO, National Arts Strategies Co-chair, 2010 ISPA Congress
“[Honoré] shows us various methods to release ourselves. . . from what Baudelaire denounced as the ‘the horrible burden of time,’ to break free of the Matrix-like illusion that we have no choice.”
—The Washington Post
“[Honoré’s] book makes a persuasive case against mindless speed and offers an intriguing array of concrete suggestions about ways ‘to make the moment last.’”
—Los Angeles Times
“In Praise of Slowness is a friendly and intelligent guide for harried types looking to change gears at home, work, or play.”
—Economist
“Try reading this book one chapter a day – it is worth allowing its subversive message to sink slowly in so it has a chance of changing your life.”
—Bill McKibben, author of Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age and The End of Nature
“In this terrific book, Carl Honoré gets to the heart of what’s ailing Western industrial societies – our obsession with productivity, speed and consumerism – but he doesn’t stop with the gloom and doom. Instead, he shows the way out, with inspiring examples from the growing worldwide “slow ” movement. Take the time to read this important, excellently written book – our future depends on the ideas it contains!”
—John de Graaf, co-author of Affluenza: The All-Consuming Epidemic, and editor of Take Back Your Time
“The speed of life borders on insanity for an increasing number of us, and the price we pay is the erosion of our happiness and health. If you sometimes feel engulfed by the mad pace of modern life – and who doesn’t? – Carl Honoré’s In Praise of Slowness could prove life-saving.”
—Larry Dossey MD, author of Healing the Body and Reinventing Medicine
“‘Entrepreneur’ and ‘slow’ may seem like oxymorons. However, taking the time to read Carl Honoré’s In Praise of Slowness may be the best decision an entrepreneur, manager, or anyone working fulltime, can make.”
—Gary Erickson, entrepreneur & CEO of Clif Bar Inc., and author of Raising the Bar
“It’s about time someone insisted – in intelligent, persuasive language – that we all put on the brakes, or at least check the instruments on the dashboard. Through anecdote, statistic and argument, Honoré wants to convert us to an atheism that is opposed to this culture’s mad theology of speed.”
—Billy Collins