The Amateur: The Pleasures of Doing What You Love

by Andy Merrifield

A passionate call for independent thinking
We have lost our amateur spirit and need to rediscover the radical and liberating pleasure of doing things we love.

In The Amateur , thinker Andy Merrifield shows us how the many spheres of our lives—work, knowledge, home, politics—have fallen into the hands of box tickers, bean counters and pedants. In response, he corrals a team of independent thinkers, wayward poets, dabblers and square pegs who challenge accepted wisdom. Such figures as Charles Baudelaire, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Edward Said, Guy Debord, Hannah Arendt and Jane Jacobs show us the way. As we will see, the amateur takes risks, thinks the unthinkable, seeks independence—and changes the world.

The Amateur is a passionate manifesto for the liberated life, one that questions authority and reclaims the iconoclast as a radical hero of our times.

Genres: Nonfiction, Philosophy, Politics, Self Help, Sociology, Cultural, Activism

240 pages, Hardcover

Published May 23, 2017

About the author

Andy Merrifield, British author and professor.

Reviews

[☘Misericordia☘ ⚡ϟ⚡⛈⚡☁ ❇️❤❣ · Rating 5 out of 5]

All GS-9 inspectors want to become GS-11 inspectors or so.

Love the take on the so-called professionalism, bereaucracy and consulting.

Other great topics:
Academc bullshit: metrics tide, impact factor.
Irrational consistency, productivity/efficiency cult. Exccellence! (Aren't we all falling for all of that?)
Big data <=> big mistakes<=> big fraud.
Incentive zoning.
Urban solutionism, triumfalism and dystopianism.
Holacracy.
Reputation economy, performativeness.
Docsophy and curiosity as the instrument of the genius.

Living in the era of bullshit excellence has never been more fun.

[Blyden · Rating 2 out of 5]

A rare thing occurred. I received a FB advertisement that actually sounded interesting. It was from Verso press for this book, _The Amateur_ by Andy Merrifield. I have long considered desirable, both personally and for the society overall, the priority of amateurs, those who do what they do out of love for doing it, over professionals, those who do what they do for sale, i.e. prostitutes. The title and blurb of this book promised a like-minded and hopefully rich analysis. I regret to say that promise is largely unfulfilled. In his preface, Merrifield says that with "this book, I want to challenge [the existing] order of things" by presenting an "alternative category, the nemesis to the professional expert: the amateur." That much, I suppose, he does, but gets little further.

This book is a loosely-organized ramble, that shifts together (1) relatively simple Marxian concepts about work (e.g. labor value, alienation, etc), (2) snippets of social thought from sociologists and other thinkers (e.g. Max Weber, Jane Jacobs, William H. Whyte, Edward Said, Pierre Bourdieu, etc), the author's own amateur and professional interests in (3) urban planning and the ecology of urban areas -- as a student of David Harvey -- and (4) literature (e.g. Doestevsky's _Underground Man_, David Foster Wallace's _The Pale King_, Kafka's _The Trial_ and _The Castle_, Jack Kerouac, Baudelaire, Dave Eggers' _The Circle_, etc), and (5) his biographical experiences, into a broad critique of the social organization of British and U.S. societies. There are many themes, but I had difficulty identifying the outline of a core argument, much less a concisely organized argument.

Chapter 1 ought to lay out the core ideas of professionalism and amateurism. I did not see that. The most interesting thing I found were extensive references to an Edward Said lecture on the subject, that immediately shot up near the top of my "to read" list and I suspect probably does a far better job than this book. Already there is a danger of conflating the professional with the expert. Merrifield derides expertise, but it seems to me that the amateur ought to be an expert, and the problems he cites with "experts" are not about their expertise, but about the hubris specifically of professional experts and the misapplication of one kind of expertise to related fields, a kind of "if I am an expert with a hammer everything looks like a nail" error.

Chapter 2 looks at professionalism as a kind of faith or religion for contemporary society. Here what I began to see is a conflation of the professional vs. amateur distinction with issues of bureaucracy and the rationalization of society (e.g. Weber and Freud). Clearly there is a strong connection between these subjects, economic rationality and bureaucracy may be causal to the rise of professionalism, professionalism may be a part of those larger processes, but neither bureaucracy nor economic rationality per se are professionalism.

Chapter 3 extends these concepts into knowledge production, particularly in the professionalization of academe and the flourishing of so-called "big data" pragmatism, i.e. the theory that it is possible to be atheoretical. The critique here is against the quantification of things that are, at best, difficult to quantify. In Weberian terms, the issue here is the irrationality, on many bases, of "pure" mathematical rationality. Something is lost in quantification.

Chapter 4 is mostly about urban ecology and planning, envisioning a bohemian "City of Amateurs". This would be a development of, say, an amateur movement in society, but tells us little about how such a movement might be created, or the core nature or benefits of amateurism.

Chapter 5, along with Chapter 8, is perhaps the chapter most directly germane to what amateurism is and how it might develop, because this chapter focuses on amateurism as it relates to work and labor markets. In this chapter one finds references to "Systeme D" and the "Happy Unemployed", a great deal of consideration of Dave Eggers' _The Circle_, a critique of Holocracy, and some analysis of labor markets. Also this insightful quote, which is as near a core definition of the concepts as one finds:

"For these 'privileged' professionals, conformism plays out as desperate need to defend your contingent benefits, to cling onto them, to do anything that ensures your employability, your indispensability. In consequence, professional employees aren't usually forced into working hard: they cajole themselves into it, they never stop working. They perform voluntarily, tailor their whole personalities to the job, become the job, weld professional work and personal life into one seamless unholy alliance."

This chapter begins the theme of the profession as a performance and, simultaneously, at questions of worker alienation and sincerity/authenticity of performance. That is, at professionalization as co-opting people's lives, identities, perhaps their souls. The prototype is the waiter performing being a waiter, from Sartre's _Being and Nothingness_.

Chapter 6 takes on the issues of professionalism in politics, with some emphasis on the privatization of what had been public sphere. Chapter 7 looks at it with relation to curiosity and art.

Chapter 8 "Hobby-Horse" is the other key chapter in my opinion, because it gives us the fundament of amateurism and shows us the psychic value of amateurism. Also starts with a fun inversion of the Rumplestiltskin story.

Chapter 9 envisions the possibility of an "Amateur Revolution" or social movement in society.

What I most wanted in this book, and thus what I see as most missing from it, are considerations of (1) how professionalism is a symptom of a particularly sociohistorical context, how and why it emerged and took over our society where it didn't exist a couple centuries past, and (2) how the personal logic of professionalism, i.e. job performance as a means to an end (e.g. income), and the personal logic of amateurism, i.e. job performance as an end in itself, lead potentially to very different kinds of results, both for individual consumers/audiences, and for the society overall. To be sure, Merrifield has ideas in the book about the different kinds of results, but without showing how that comes from logic of the process at an individual level. I, as a sociologist, tend to look at problems in terms of individual's making decisions within a particular, historically social and semantic structure and this, it seems to me, is what is most missing. It is like having a body, with arms, legs, and various organs, but missing its heart. No, it is like reading about a body without a heart described in artistic, literary, and biographical terms, and without the benefit of the logic of anatomy.

[Alex Golub · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was supposed to be a case for amateurism’s superiority over professionalism, but most of the book is actually a long critique of professionalism and its failings. Amateurism gets second billing, which disappointed me. For Merrifield, ‘professionalism’ stands for routine, meaninglessness, oppression (if one is a worker) and hubristic self-confidence (if one is a technocrat). ‘Amateurism’ is framed in strikingly Protestant (and romantic) terms, despite Merrifield’s endebtedness to Marx, Sartre, and Debord: Authenticity, spontaneity, innerness, self-contemplation, rebellion against conformity, creativity and imagination etc. Bright high school students, undergraduates, or anyone just coming to the life of the mind will have their minds blown by this book’s dizzying tour through ‘Western’ (i.e. almost all entirely white) thought and culture, and will marvel at the connections made between, for instance, Blaise Pascal and My Dinner With André. But Verso habitués will not be impressed with the book’s light engagement with familiar thinkers and its by-now standard anti-corporate critique. In sum, a well-written walk through a series of thinkers and critiques which many readers will already be familiar with.

[Joanna Ward · Rating 3 out of 5]

unfortunately this is like a basic cross between Bullshit Jobs and The Unknowers . like I think I would have been conceptually more impressed if I hadn’t recently read the same ideas elsewhere but better put / if I wasn’t already on board with the whole anti-bureaucracy and ultimately anti-work thing ...

there were nice moments but overall it felt and a bit too vague and lacking in critical insight . plus the general vibe strayed a bit too close to individualism / and specifically fetishising the ~quirky person who doesn’t participate and is therefore poor but also righteous~ for my liking

I also simply wanted this book to be about amateurism from a v different perspective — yes as generative, as here , but from a closer more critical / analytical lens of like WHAT amateurism is actually resisting in a general context of the fetishisation of “training” and “discipline” rather than specifically re: work

ultimately I enjoyed just zooming through this as it was a pretty easy read, think it was a shame it wasn’t more finely tuned or focussed but I got some nice passages and sparked ideas from it

[Adam · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this book odd. To begin with, Mr. Merrifield’s treatise has very little to do with “the pleasures of doing what you love.” Does the book discuss the author’s deep antagonism toward professionalism and top-down, covetously-managed social structures? Yes. Is it expressive of what seems to me a sort of magical, anarchic desire (the logic of which I have never understood) to tear down the apparent confinement of “what is” in hopes that a fantastically better, universally empowering “should be” will spring up in its place, and does the “should be” sometimes bear an uncanny resemblance to what already “is”? Yes. May the ethos of this book’s pop cultural diagnoses and prescriptions be linked with reasonable accuracy to progressivism or conservatism, anarchy or capitalism or democracy or communism? Not in a way I have been able to decipher. Is the titular subject – The Amateur, or hobbyism – ironically leveraged in order to raise a confusing array of sociopolitical points into view? Definitely. So out of all the things this book is or may be, the one it is most definitely not is a celebration of the simple joy of engaging in an activity for the love of it.

Almost from the start, I felt confused by the animosity the author brings to bear on the evil, oligarchic systems he feels afflicted by. The dust jacket of the book discloses that Mr. Merrifield “is the author of nine books” and has been published in periodicals as diverse and well-reputed as Nation, Harper’s, and Adbusters. How, then, is he a victim of professional gate-keeping? Whence this frustration that his life has been stifled, his ambitions denied? The author definitely seems restless, discontent, as he expresses on p.155: “In a way, I’m still trying to find myself, and that’s one of the reasons for writing this book.” The question of whether his progress in self-actualization is a matter of fault – his own or someone/something else’s, whether the result of a distinct choice or a societal structure – or an immutable consequence of the human condition, or some combination of these and other factors, is certainly a matter of debate, but Mr. Merrifield does not debate, and – ironically for a self-professed hobbyist – he spends little time in this book with himself, or inside himself. His attention points outward, toward how social, political, and economic officialdom needs to change.

But what change? From what ought humans (or at least Western societies) to move, and into what? The simultaneous vagueness and hyperfocus on ‘the amateur’ of Mr. Merrifield’s thoughts are revealing. From p.168: “[A]mateur politics…can only be achieved through amateur identities asserting their collective amateurism…,” and “[t]ogether [amateurs] might make something amateurishly affirmative, enabling them to live beyond the negative, beyond the state of demotivation and disaffection. Can everyone affirm their Hobby-Horse and not only earn a living but organize a society? I’m not sure. Hypothetically, I like to think yes.” Aside from the circular invocation of the word amateur in its many forms, which amounts to saying nothing, I submit that he is effectively saying, “I’m not sure what would be better or how it would be achieved.”

In this uncertainty, I find it telling how rapidly elements of the would-be old order reemerge in the picture of a new Eden: earning a living, organizing a society. In other places he describes gathering to make democratic decisions. In Utopia it will also matter to have measurable, publicly-recognized authority in one’s field of so-called amateurism, as witnessed when the author speaks of Hannah Arendt, Jane Jacobs, and Rachel Carson. Strangely, while Mr. Merrifield acknowledges that all these figures were women struggling against bigoted power brokers, he leans hard on the idea that they were amateurs combatting an entire system. Not having read these women authors, and with due consideration to the fact that Ms. Arendt wrote a book called On Revolution, I wonder if they would have submitted to conscription into Mr. Merrifield’s dream of bringing down Western society…especially with such vague ambitions regarding what will replace it.

Yet prior to the matter of what should come next, according to what terms are we meant to critique the status quo? Like so much else in this book, that is unclear to me. The author loves to draw fuel from Marx and Lenin. Some of his complaints sound like people I know who claim loyalty to anarchism. Elsewhere, as when he talks about the bureaucratic juggernaut (all those people who run our lives but whom we never voted for, and who he feels ought to be culled from the grossly-swollen managerial class), I hear echoes of neoconservatives and demagogues. Even capitalism pops up its head in this discussion to critique capitalism, as on p.103 when Mr. Merrifield asserts that “[d]isengagement costs the capitalist economy dearly, as much as $550 billion each year.” Which of these perspectives is meant to represent the amateur, or by what rationale are these disparate influences sifted and combined, other than according to what will fuel the pyre on which Now must burn?

In the midst of all this confusion, the author makes some fine points (even if how actionable the point is varies). He observes that systems of government are imposed on the many by the few. True enough, and certainly a sobering fact – I am reminded of what I’ve read of how Spain passed from dictatorship to democracy – although I’m not sure that there’s any more a way to evade this reality than that a baby mammal is born from its mother’s uterus, or whether our energy is better spent trying to escape such a condition or simply work to ensure that progress is positive and protected. Referring to French politics of the 1980s and 90s, Mr. Merrifield asks the pointed question, “[h]ow come both Right and Left pushed through remarkably similar policies?” The same question could be asked in the US, if not other Western nations, and this consolidation of vested interest effects over and against cosmetic party causes, this reaping of power and salting of the earth of change under cover of token gestures of equality and fair opportunity, deserves a book in its own right. Not this book, however, whose diffuse, anarchic pipe dreams only contribute to the ineffectiveness of grassroots movements against a very well-oiled machine. In his own words on p.170, as if to explode this very book, Mr. Merrifield asks, “[a]re we here to be bought off, pacified and numbed? Or are we here to challenge and provoke, to stir ourselves into opposition, into collective, democratic action?” Well, with all due respect, I don’t believe that anyone in Washington or London is quaking to hear the words, “amateur politics…can only be achieved through amateur identities asserting their collective amateurism….” Perhaps Mr. Merrifield's strongest point is made as he discusses the professional class and its abuses of power to protect itself against participation by any sort of newcomer who has not been officially appointed, neutered, and declawed by that establishment. In other words, so-called opportunity that sucks all vitality from true diversity while reinforcing the status quo. The breakdown of trust between experts and the masses, the breach of contract committed by the former against the latter and the wave of populist retaliations by the latter has placed us in a dire societal situation, but this problem is not solved by elites further locking down their fortresses nor by plebes razing those fortresses. We need experts. And we need experts who are willing to die and cede their power to new experts. But such nuance is not explored in this book.

Ultimately, I believe that this book falls under the weight of its own vague ethos and exhausting rhetoric of MacBethan sound and fury. A few examples of the latter follow:

P.87, “New Babylon sought to expose the ruse of professional urbanism, détourning it for the sake of disalienation: ‘We need to defend ourselves at all times from the bards of conditioning – and reverse their rhythms.’ Constant dreamed of redolent passageways, shocking landscapes, a holistic urban environment that brimmed with texture, tone, and topographic fantasy.”

P.161, “To cast off bad faith isn’t to deny the ambiguity of one’s existence but to acknowledge the double agency inherent in any situation, and that I can be subverted.”

P.188, “The shadow citizenry is a territorial reserve army of foot soldiers, a relative surplus population of ordinary people who want in but are forced out. They’re defiant yet disunited, disgruntled and raging in a global civil war of austerity and high-frequency piracy. Shadow citizens exist in the realm where social exclusion meets spatial marginality.”

I think I make my point. Fundamentally, I am bothered that while looking for Gray’s Sports Almanac, I found myself holding a very high-falutin’ copy of Ooh, La La. In the future, discovering I’ve been baited and switched in this way may be enough for me to immediately return the book, but in this case, once I found myself reading the articles of Ooh, La La, I was willing to come along for the ride. Alas, I found myself doubly disappointed since the prose wasn’t that great, anyway, nor were the ideas particularly compelling. It ultimately feels like a story in which the protagonist’s legitimate grievances have festered into despair or bitterness, with the result that constructive thought and action has yielded entirely to the urge to blow things up.

[Masha M · Rating 5 out of 5]

отличная книга на любимую тему диксредитации современного уклада, а вернее неолиберализма
нравится, что рассуждения не на уровне здравого смысла с бесконечными примерами, а что-то близкое к исследовательской работе, с многочисленными ссылками и на художественные произведение и на философские труды. Книга совсем небольшая и все к месту, каждая глава покрывает тему по своему, что-то про урбанизм, что-то про корпоративную работу, про искусство или политику.

читала с большим удовольствием

[lunataradja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Трошки пафосно (чи то дуже натхненно) і чрєвато спалахами ненависті до своєї роботи (не в усіх, звісно, але не лякайтесь, якщо раптом зловите себе на такому), але цим "Любитель" для мене якраз теж виявився цінним. Рекомендовано до прочитання перед кожним наступним працевлаштуванням або наприкінці третього робочого кварталу кожного року.

[Janet Bbgr]

My expectations were wrong about this book. It's mostly about politics and economics.

[AK]

I would love to write a positive review of this book, because, like the author, I read too much Guy Debord at a tender age and it really did a number on my ability to have any type of career ambition, so then I went to graduate school and enjoyed that for awhile until I (finally) realized that academia would also require professionalization. I am very dedicated to the idea of amateurism, to my own detriment (financially, at least.) But unfortunately, I agree with the sociologist-penned review here on Goodreads. Not only is there not a functional definition of the amateur in the book (besides 'cool person who is not a square who cares about earning a living'), the constant focus on the individual, at the level of work and generally interpellation into the capitalist machine, felt counterproductive. I think there's something to be said about the eternal tension between the existentialist focus on individual authenticity and a Marxist focus on labor and class relations, but Merrifield is not interested in examining why labor has professionalized and bureaucratized, he's content just imply you're lame if you participate in any way. An early chapter had a reading of David Foster Wallace's The Pale King that I felt was pretty off the mark, talking about this novel as if DFW was just saying "wow look at the absurdity of overwhelming bureaucracy" as many authors have done before, whereas I found the book much of the book is about boredom, the power of getting to the other side of boredom, and the individual people who make up such a bureaucracy (they are still individuals, the relationship between the system and the person, etc. It left me unable to trust most of Merrifield's other textual analyses, but I did leave the book inspired to read Marshall Berman, Hannah Arendt, and a few others. I'll still look into Merrifield's other books, I'm sure one of them will work better than this.

[dv · Rating 4 out of 5]

There's something nice and something missing about this book. Being a book about amateurism, I do like of it the free "wandering" of the author through different topics and fields - in particular literature. What I'm missing is a more cohesive structure and, especially, a final chapter - the one devoted to an explicit political discourse - more focused on real, proactive actions and not so dangerously close to the drift of populism. I'm sure I'm writing this because I'm looking at the current (2018) Italian political situation, but I can't help but still having more faith in professional politics rather than in bottom-up "movements" which - at least in Italy - are giving voice and power to people lacking any kind of amateur attitude (in the sense of this book). I keep on loving the idea of being an amateur (I definitely am), so I *have to* like this book but I do really find difficult to think about this approach out of the arts-culture realm and extended to politics. Which is my fault and a pity, but this book doesn't help from this point of view.

[Clare Trowell · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was interesting and easy to read. Merrifield deconstructs our global world and economy by explaining the insidious effect of professionalism. By this he is referring to the hideous layers of bureaucracy implemented by 'suits' that infects every area of our lives. Something I have never been able to abide. He catalogues our descent into an alienated world where even our public and community spaces have been 'sold off' to private investors disenfranchising us all from engagement, community and agency in our own lives. The book is prescient in the light of what happened in June at Grenfell Tower. The last chapter is devoted to how we could resist and rites this inevitable theft of our humanity - defining what he means by the 'amateur' and how we could start to turn things around . He cited examples such as the Occupy movement and references Hannah Arendt. However, I am left with a certain feeling of hopelessness having read the book...

[Leif · Rating 4 out of 5]

Merrifield is an impassioned and eloquent guide with forceful critiques of the contemporary working work. Here, he allows himself to revel in the pleasures and pains of the modern economic, social, and cultural relationships around work, and often presents his commentary from an embodied perspective that I greatly appreciated. The advice on how to reintegrate amateurism into politics and society isn't as good as the diagnosis, but that's to be expected. Overall, I thought that this was a really invigorating book in a subject that is close to the hearts of many, and is a good companion to other texts such as David Graeber's new Bullshit Jobs, which thoughtfully discusses one of Merrifield's key tenets: that labour today is fractured and broken at its very core.

[Marianne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would like everyone to read this book for its urgent and passionately argued message. The literary references didn't really connect for me because I haven't read any of the books the author draws on except Silent Spring, but the point wasn't lost during those passages either.

[Michele · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely worth reading - a critique on neoliberalism in academia and the wider world.

[Lefty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Merrifield does a wonderful job making a case for a commitment to amateurism. For Merrifield, this commitment is deeply political, as amateurs seek to overthrow the "professional" regimes that have created the alienating, socially stratified, violent societies in which we live. There is something revolutionary about amateurism for him, something about it that challenges the status quo and works to create something new. Amateurs exist in all sectors of society; they exist in politics, as amateur artists, intellectuals, and architects, etc. Amateurs are not tied to the strings of financiers, corporations, capitalists, or the state because they often (though not always) do what they do for free, for the love of it. Here, we see the real political possibilities of Merrifield's amateurism; imagine, just for a second, what we can accomplish politically if we did not have to worry about money, if we did not have to answer to corporate foundations, to funders, etc.

Of course, some might see this as an ideal that is not practical--only a privileged few can afford to not worry about money. Merrifield isn't blind to this; however, he could have perhaps provided more concrete ideas about how we can subvert the professional regime even while living within it. Readers, I think, though, will find his lofty ideas and ruminations on what could be, on what a society built around the flourishing of human life looks like, refreshing. Several times while reading this book, I had to pause and simply just imagine how much better we could organize our cities, our labor, our lives.

That being said, those familiar with marxism won't find much new here. However, Merrifield explains marxist notions of value, philosophy, alienation (and others) with ease and in easily comprehendible, though by no means simple, terms. Those new to marxism would gain much here while those already familiar with these marxist concepts will enjoy an, again, refreshing take on them that is deeply concerned with imagining new societies and new ways of living. The book will certainly leave every reader with questions and ideas for how they can implement amateurism (again, a deeply political project) in their life.

[Malcolm · Rating 4 out of 5]

In much of the Anglophone world, at least big bits of the Northern Hemisphere part of it, 2016 & 2017 became all about expert bashing – but this is not to be confused with praise of the amateur, the non-expert; it was rather all about the elite praising only their own experts who were passed off, as so often happens by those with power, as purveyors of common sense. This is not Andy Merrifield’s world – his amateurs are some of the most important and influential thinkers of the modern era – Marx, Jane Jacobs, Baudelaire, Edward Said, Guy Debord: all of whom have in common that they refused, denied and confronted those experts in the service of Power.

In a sense, Merrifield argues that the world is too complex to be left to those ‘experts’ who have a vast technical knowledge of their specialist area – and little else. He likes those who defy convention and the constraints of disciplinary knowledge and convention to look anew, or perhaps askance, at the ways things are and to see them in different ways. A recurrent theme through the book is urban space, or at least writers on and analysts of urban space, which allows Merrifield to celebrate Jane Jacobs’ early 1960s view of the street from the point of view of women who use it differently and at different times of the day in different ways than does the conventional urban analyst. But he goes further than just discussions of the books of these amateurs, these experts unconstrained by convention: in Jacobs’ case for instance he also explores her community organising to remind us that big social change does not come about because of a battle of experts, but because of a battle of power where political movements are important in putting ideas into action and pressuring those in office to do and act.

He does this throughout this engaging and in places entertaining book, through chapters discussing cities, work, and politics, the problems of trying to quantify knowledge and the joys of hobbies. As an academic, I delighted in the chapter on curiosity and the joys of excess absorption in something, anything. Most importantly he argues that for change to occur we need to focus on the stuff that matters to us; we need to care and delve deeply into those things but also to make sure that we deal with the little things, small actions and activism as well as the big stuff – and doing well in a way that resists the constraints of the professional.

One of Merrifield’s great skills is his ability to engage and complex ideas, retain their integrity and cut through so much of the foliage to present them in clear, sharp and accessible ways without writing down to his general/on specialist audiences – and that’s the sign of a good amateur, doing what he loves. This, then, is a fabulous book giving hope for ways that we might live and do differently, to defy the alienation of abstraction and to build a place where we all do better.

[Steffi · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I am fortunate here. Or unfortunate, depending on how you see it: I found passion in life. It helped me escape, into the wilderness. It's been a blessing and a curse, certainly a challenge. For there's no career in my passion, never will be
That makes life hard, because there are few job openings. But I got my chance, a second chance actually, and took it, coming across this passion in a strange place: books. I am still not sure whether certain books led me to being a contrarian or being a contrarian led me to certain books. But books helped me to articulate the politics inside me, which dumbfounded me, which yearned to break out of me. Books explained why I felt adrift and in and between those tiresome and ridiculous jobs I had. Books planted seeds in my head, flowering into a realisation: that I could never fit into any professionalized world."

I so knew that I'd like this book and ordered two copies right away (one for comrade B). I find this subject difficult to explain because it feels so totally self-evident, being so used to the agony of living in a world of experts and professionals, with the never ending tyranny of technocratic neoliberal lingo (gibberish, really) of: scorecards, value for money, human capital, comparative advantage, economic empowerments, key performance indicators, streamlining, overhead, business processes, investment case, results based, portfolios, accountability, management excellence, knowledge product, efficiency gain, talent pool, output, value add... and these multi-million dollar nightmarish consultancy firms who are trying to convince themselves and the rest of the world that there no longer is a division between work and life; everything is purpose, personal growth, and happiness.

Cute, looking back now a time when I didnt yet grasp the meaning of hegemony and was convinced that I could avoid the anti-intellectual horrors of the private sector by joining the public sector.

<3

[Peter Geyer · Rating 2 out of 5]

The title of this book was enticing, as I see myself as a kind of dilettante or at least someone thinking from outside what might be called professional structures, and I like the idea of doing what I love, which I'm doing right now.

Andy Merrifield's purpose is quite different however, and the only spot we really meet is his critique of technocrats and difficulties in being in academia, not a personal problem, but something problematic both here in Australia and where Merrifield is located in the UK. His observations there are interesting.

He wants to denigrate experts in general and replace it with another kind of discourse, which he thinks is possible, a radical random kind of thing, part of which he suggests Jeremy Corbyn might deliver, something I find dubious although, having said that, politics is a volatile business these days and it's not clear that anyone really has a grasp of the current situation, whether from lack of intellectual capacity, ideology, or disinterest in the citizenry. In the latter, I share Merrifield's concerns, if not his perspective. .

This book has been correctly described as a polemic, which isn't exactly my favourite kind of writing. Although he writes easily, I thought there wasn't much ground under what he was claiming and some places didn't make sense. Maybe I'm too conservative, al;though i locate myself in Merrifield's broad area. Nonetheless I prefer someone like Terry Eagleton, who makes more sense even when I'm in disagreement.

I also like to have experts, but not technocrats.

[Ella Smith · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is unfortunate. It essentially reads like three or more books compiled together and oriented around a loose theme (the lives of amateurs and the constructed dichotomy between them and professionals). There are sections that cover urban planning, literature, autobiography and more, though the first half is borderline frustrating to read because it so misses the stated (or advertised) theme of exploring this amateur/pro dichotomy.

I felt like the page-to-page writing was good and I would actually like to read other works by this author, because it was honestly pretty easy to read otherwise. I checked just now and it seems he authored a lot of things, which disproves my initial assumption that this might be one of his only books, which would account for the way it was written. I think this might have been something written on a short time frame or actually was a collection of essays that were then edited, who knows.

I'd like to read a more purely autobiographical piece by Merrifield, because part of the reason I picked this book up was because I myself feel a bit lost in the midst of a career change and am now having to put forth my own amateur status as the primary mask I wear. It feels weird after having been a "professional" in a "field" for 4+ years. That said, he eventually does make some good points and coalesces much better around the central topic in the second half of the book, drawing from Baudelaire and Debord as well as others for some good historical context. Just wish more of the book was like that!

[Supriyo Chaudhuri · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a fine celebration of the 'amateur', those who defy categorisation and refuse to fall in professional boxes, those who engage in life with curiosity and enthusiasm rather than the solemn seriousness of the expert. At the heart of this book are many amateur celebrities, Marx, Arendt, Jane Jacobs and others, who tinkered and agitated, who dared to do things differently, and who challenged the professionals and experts of their day, people who pretended objective superiority while really hustling themselves for privileges and pay from special interests. Another reviewer, less impressed, spoke about the book's nativity and utopianism; exactly the point of the amateurs perhaps. There is none of the structure and form that make the business books so unbearable; rather it meanders through many ideas and issues, from politics to art to city planning and governance, and challenges the tyranny of the unaccountable accountants, lawyers and consultants, professional politicians on payroll of financial interests, the 'fake news' media and self help gurus. And, to the professional revolutionaries too and self appointed guardians of sanity, the academics! Overall, this offers a refreshing vision of participation and action, unusual and imaginative, not wanting to be a manifesto but to trigger conversations and debate.

[Em · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ostensibly a book about cherishing the creative impulse without turning it to professional, capitalist ends, this book mostly ends up meandering for pages describing the problems of bureaucracy, tech culture, and the gig economy. Look, I live this shit, I've got a patreon and am on twitter every day. I didn't need to be told. Less problem outlining more solution expounding would have helped a lot. Instead, I was mostly told what I already knew by someone who insisted on using Baudelaire and Dostoevsky to make a point any of my friends could speak on with much more eloquence.

[Mike Stolfi · Rating 3 out of 5]

At this point humans have a poor track record of creating any organization that doesn't collapse under the weight of supporting it's own elite, but it's probably about time to raise up the standard of humanist Democracy & try again....
And if you have to start by defining what the concept of an amateur actually means before toppling all that's obviously wrong you go do that & we'll let you know once it's done....

[Wilde Sky · Rating 3 out of 5]

The title is misleading as I was expecting a discussion / review of the work of amateurs in research / business, but this book is actually an odd academic work.

A few sections of this book were interesting (yes, individuals can make a difference), but it could have been improved by showing examples of where an amateur contributed to a real scientific discovery or created a business, instead of all the film / book references.

Overall rating 2.5

[Çetin Balanuye · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yaşadığımız çağın zalimlikleri, yabancılaştırıcı tekrarları ve başkaca pek çok tatsızlıklarının gerisindeki nedenlerden biri: Amatörlüğün yitimi.

Profesyonelliğin alkışlandığı, amatörlüğün hor görüldüğü bu çağda, ustaca sömürü de ancak profesyoneller eliyle sürdürülür.

Hayatın saçlarından tutmak için amatörce merakları yeniden kazanmak gerekiyor. Devrimci bir kitap. Dönüştürücü. Israrla öneriyorum.

[Philipp · Rating 4 out of 5]

An inspiring and thought-provoking book . The last chapter seems a little optimistic (".. we'd grant austerity only insofar as they apply to the downsizing and planned shrinkake of the over-paid, tax-dodging bureaucratic and financial sector..."... if only!), but then again, what else should Andy be than try and be optimistic?
Challenging social and societal questions here, Marxism for the win!

[Anne Michaud · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not what I expected, especially given the subtitle. This book was a diatribe against bureaucrats and other professionals who hold power over our lives with their "spreadsheets and flip charts." The author champions "spiritual citizens of the universe." It's quite a detailed argument, if that's what you're looking for, but not exactly an inspiration to do the things you love.

[brisingr · Rating 3 out of 5]

A bit messy; ideas and notions didn't really make sense even inside the same chapter (so structurally, it should be threaded together by *something*) and too much focus was on why professionalism is bad, with examples, rather than on the amateur aspect of living as the pleasure of doing what you love.

[Moira McPartlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

I almost didnt finish this. All the way through I hoped to find what it promised on the cover. The text rambled all over and only now and again did I manage to grasp what the author was try to get at. But now at the end, I still dont know what it was about.

[Jo Hetland · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very grounding book, having you reflect on the significance of your contributions, and the impact you could have if you stood down form the professional pedestal. Loved it!

[Jules · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book has the same energy as Dr. John’s “Qualified”