The Monocle Book of Gentle Living: A guide to slowing down, enjoying more and being happy (The Monocle Series, 2)

Most monocle books are good advices for living

Slow living is all the rage for all the obvious reasons, and this book is a visual manifesto of the concept. I enjoy flipping through pages, noticing new things every time I look, relaxing as I contemplate the meaning of my surroundings and how to shape them to enrich my life, not the other way around. A therapy session in a book of beautiful images!

Monocle team, you’ve outdone yourself. I own almost all your texts and this one is the best. Truly a master piece in relaxation communication and inspiration. I was in love with every page.

Good content, somewhat questionable design decisions. Monocle has been featuring excerpts of this book since its release, so Monocle subscribers may find themselves already familiar with a sizable amount of the content. Unfortunately, the illustrations printed with the excerpts outside of this book have more charm to me than what is printed here. I was hoping this would be illustrated by Satoshi Hashimoto, or someone who brings the same amount of whimsy and character to the task. I loved the illustrations printed in a recent issue of the magazine (as well as the ones included in the Monocle x Leuchtturm notebooks). Seeing how well bits of this text have been interpreted by other illustrators across the Monocle portfolio drives home just how short the book falls in this area.

Really enjoyed the content, as always. But this time, the diversity of font size on one page quite annoys me, and if its reason is design over experience, I'm not happy with it.