Slow down. Have fun. Live well.

We publish a magazine seven times a year and run retreats and a festival. Our school, The Idler Academy of Philosophy, Husbandry and Merriment, comprises of an ever-growing set of online classes and courses. With us, you can learn about Socrates and the history of London, take a meditation course, discover the latest science on psychedelics, and get to grips with psychoanalysis, Jane Austen or the ukulele.

Libertas per cultum

Our Latin motto means “freedom through education” We believe that fulfilment and pleasure come from learning and laughter. That’s why we encourage everyone to slow down, have fun and live well.

“Wide-ranging, always interesting, and the perfect thing to read in the bath,”
India Knight, Sunday Times

“Better than drugs,”
Emma Thompson

“The Idler’s appeal and relevance seem to increase by the day,”
Michael Palin

“The Idler offers me the chance to learn about everything that really matters and a respite from what we are told really matters – like working hard for your boss,”
Dominic West

“The Idler is a small, brilliant but perfectly formed magazine that celebrates loafing about and learning the art of living… eccentric, kind, curious, convivial and radical without being hectoring,”
Cosmo Landesman, Spectator World

“The absurd, apparently useless or bizarre concerns of the magazine – Latin, ukuleles, handwriting – have over the years given me a deep joy bordering on the religious,”
Sally Phillips