Books by Robert A. Stebbins

Drawing on the sociology of everyday life, Stebbins puts forward the notion of Pondering Everyday Life (PEA), a thinking process/activity in which we routinely understand, coordinate, organize, remember, and compare our involvements in work, leisure, and non-work obligations.

This is the first ethnographic study of the francophone community of a major Anglophone urban centre in Canada. Stebbins presents an objective but sympathetic analysis in a fluid and engaging style. His work provides a prototype for the analysis of francophone communities in Anglophone cities.

There have been many analyses of leisure, drawing on the social, historical, cultural, temporal, and geographical contexts in which acts of leisure are pursued.

This book explores, from a leisure studies perspective, the central role that leisure has to play in positive psychology, exploring themes such as flow, fulfilment, altruism, well-being, and interpersonal relationships.

There have been many analyses of leisure, drawing on the social, historical, cultural, temporal, and geographical contexts in which acts of leisure are pursued.

Volunteering and its nonprofit organizations have commonly been analyzed in economic terms, with volunteering being referred to as "unpaid (productive) work". By means of a lengthy literature review, this book sets out the theoretical and empirical contributions of the serious leisure perspective to understanding volunteer motivation.

Augmentative play is a special activity that substantially aids the pursuit of a larger, encompassing leisure activity. This approach to the study of play is unique. It recognizes the hundreds of activities in which play and leisure come together.

"Originally published in 2004 by Transaction Publishers"--Verso.

Committed utilitarian reading is either dominantly practical or more or less equally practical and fulfilling. Pleasurable reading is conceptualized as an important kind of casual leisure, experienced primarily as relaxation, active entertainment, and sexual stimulation (racy, pornographic stories). Such reading can also be a launching pad for day-dreams or lively conversation. Self-fulfilling reading is explored in a disquisition on the liberal arts hobbies. This is no place for speed reading, but instead is where we care to pause often to appreciate the artistry of the writing, creativity of the plot, profundity of the message (i.e., the information it contains), and the like. And in fulfilling reading we sometimes want to analyze the material. This book explores three main motives for reading identified as utilitarian, pleasurable, and fulfilling. Its principal object is to deepen our understanding of why some adults (and eager late adolescent readers) go in for ';committed reading,' or reading that, as we strive to acquire literary knowledge and experience, necessarily consumes considerable time and requires continuous concentration. The conceptual frameworks guiding this endeavor are library and information science and the serious leisure perspective. Through their lenses the author examines the reading of books, magazines, manuals, reports, and other lengthy material as carried out in the three domains of life: work, leisure, and non-work obligation. In brief, committed reading provides its enthusiasts with knowledge and experience, which among other ways, are sought, acquired, interpreted, organized, and sometimes disseminated within the three domains. This book also examines committed reading in daily life, its ease, convenience, affordability, and enduring effects. There follows a portrait of the various reading environments, including music to read by, reading at airports and on airplanes, reading in one's study, in a park, on public transit, in public libraries, and elsewhere. This is part of the reader's social world, which is further comprised of book clubs, bookstores, Amazon.com, censorship, author public readings, and more.

Looks into how, why, and when people pursue those things in life that they desire, the things they do to make their existence attractive, worth living. This book synthesizes three main forms of leisure (serious, casual, and project-based) showing their distinctive features, similarities, and interrelationships.

As the greying of our population continues, retirees are enjoying more and more healthy years of retirement, and those years can be productive, enjoyable, and rewarding. This work speaks to those retirees who wish to enjoy their golden years doing things they enjoy.