Hold on

What do you do when you're not asleep and when you're not eating? You're most likely waiting--to finish work, to get home, or maybe even to be seen by your doctor. Hold On is less about how to manage all that staying where one is until a particular time or event (OED) than it is about describing how we experience waiting. Waiting can embrace things like hesitation and curiosity, dithering and procrastination, hunting and being hunted, fearing and being feared, dread and illness, courting and parenting, anticipation and excitement, curiosity, listening to and even performing music, being religious, being happy or unhappy, being bored and being boring. They're all explored here. Waiting is also characterized by brain chemicals such as serotonin and dopamine. They can radically alter the way we register the passing of time. Waiting is also the experience that may characterize most interpersonal relations--mismanage it at your own risk.

Hold On contains advice on how to cope with waiting-how to live better-but its main aim is to show how important the experience of waiting is, in popular and highbrow culture, and, sometimes, in history. Detouring into psychology, neurology, ethology, philosophy, film, literature, and especially art, Peter Toohey's illuminates in unexpected ways one of the most common of human experiences. After reading his book, you'll never wait the same way again.


Showcasing Peter Toohey's knack for philosophical ingenuity and cross-genre storytelling, Hold On is a highly readable, often hilarious, study of a rarely appreciated state of mind: the state of waiting. With characteristic intellectual zest and an eye for detail, Toohey makes a case for the value of nurturing our inherent talent for waiting. Essential reading by a world-class writer. Never again will you be waiting in vain. -- Berit Brogaard, University of Miami

Children wait for the holidays, students wait to graduate, lonely people wait for their soul mate... Need we always put our lives on hold? Can't we live now? Peter Toohey's book persuaded me that we can live while we wait. A pause can be pleasurable and a delay can be worth it. We can be good at waiting. -- Iskra Fileva, University of Colorado, Boulder

Wait a little longer, you'll never regret it.' Peter Toohey's masterful slow ride through the arts and sciences echoes Pozzo's line from Waiting for Godot at every turn. We're all just waiting, and neuroscience research shows why that's a good thing, whether we are narrating Dr. Seuss, reveling in Miles Davis, or admiring a Degas pastel. Take your time with this book; it'll be worth it. -- Frank Partnoy, author of Wait: The Art and Science of Delay