I haven't read either, but O'Connor sounds more on the right track. The value of idleness is not that it will make you more productive or better at your job after you stop being idle; it's valuable in its own right. Work is important, but I think it's pathological to vaunt it as we do in our society, just as it's pathological to completely shirk it and live in squalor.

Basically, I just want to take a nap, much like O'Connor apparently. There is a note of desperation, perhaps nervous disavowal of death, in our society's insistence on always doing, always improving, always producing.

I haven't read either of these but I did enjoy "How to be Idle" by Tom Hodgkinson years back: https://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Idle-Loafers-Manifesto/dp/0060...

there's a great book in the same vein, How to be Idle. http://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Idle-Manifesto-ebook/dp/B00DB3F...

I also enjoyed this book on the topic: http://www.amazon.com/How-Be-Idle-Loafers-Manifesto/dp/00607...