Thomas Hodgkinson

I’m Tom Hodgkinson

How To Be Idle

By

Hamish Hamilton 288pp £12.99 order from our bookshop

I received an email from Tom Hodgkinson the other day. ‘Dear Tom Hodgkinson’, it began, before going on to make a polite request that I didn’t write any more articles under the name ‘Tom Hodgkinson’, and signing off with the words, ‘Yours etc, Tom Hodgkinson’. I had just written a piece in The Guardian about a marathon I’d done, which had been accompanied by various (posed) photographs of me in tight shorts, and infused generally with a spirit of neo-Fascistic body-worship. My namesake, who also writes for The Guardian, was protecting his reputation.

Sign Up to our newsletter

Receive free articles, highlights from the archive, news, details of prizes, and much more.

Follow Literary Review on Twitter

  • Last Tweets

    • In 'Silenced Voices' reports the ongoing story of the human rights lawyer, Nasrin Sotoudeh, who has been… ,
    • The mystery of Jack the Ripper's identity has long been agonised over. But what do we know about his victims?… ,
    • A piece of Literary Review history from way back in 1983: John Haffenden talks to the great Iris Murdoch. ,
    • Britain’s only travelling lit fest, the Garden Museum Literary Festival is heading to Houghton Hall, Norfolk, for a… ,
    • 'The 19th-century German sage is not my idea of a pleasant travel companion' goes hiking with Friedr… ,
    • If you want ideas about what to read next, sign up to our free email newsletter, and get book reviews, archive mate… ,
    • 'The heroic male nude could not, I think, be used today to signify civic pride and glory', as Michelangelo’s 'David… ,
    Follow Us