The 4-Hour Workweek: Escape 9-5, Live Anywhere, and Join the New Rich, by Timothy Ferriss (Crown, April 2007)

It’s no secret that the world of work is undergoing a revolution. A growing number of Americans expect to change jobs every few years, and even careers a few times in their lives. Lifetime employment, career tracks and pensions have disappeared like typewriters. So in recent years, a slew of books have tried to coach confused workers through the new career rules—how to find or create the perfect job, how to become “Brand You” or how to deal with change and folks who move your cheese.

Tim Ferriss, a 29-year-old serial entrepreneur and general gadfly, is not concerned with any of this. He doesn’t think you should try to fit into the new world of work. Instead, you should skip it entirely. “This book is not about finding your ‘dream job,’” he writes in this breezy, iconoclastic tome. “I will take as a given that, for most people…the perfect job is the one that takes the least time. The vast majority of people will never find a job that can be an unending source of fulfillment, so that is not the goal here; to free time and automate income is.”

His reasoning is seductive. Most people labor through the best years of their lives in order to be able to travel someday, or spend time with their families, or pursue other hobbies. But life need not be lived in the “slave, save, retire” order. A better approach is to figure out how much money you need to be able to live in the style you like, then figure out a way to earn that income in the minimal number of hours. Thanks to the Internet, outsourcing, virtual assistants and a host of other technological advances, building an automated, profitable business is more possible than ever before.

Ferriss doesn’t think you should try to fit into the new world of work. Instead, you should skip it entirely.

In motivational speaker style, Ferriss describes exactly how he did this. He once worked 80 hours a week for $40,000 a year. Then he set up an online nutraceutical business called BrainQUICKEN. Once he figured out a profitable, efficient model where he made money on every order and where his Indian virtual assistants solved any customer problem that cost less than a few hundred dollars, he went from working 80 hours a week for $40,000 a year to working 4 hours a week for $40,000 a month. He’s used his free time to compete in Chinese kickboxing contests and tango tournaments, among other things, such as writing this book. Follow his advice, the pitch goes, and you can do it too!

Of course, people who read the ads in the backs of magazines will already be familiar with this genre of self-improvement literature. While The 4-Hour Workweek is better written than the average Get Rich in Real Estate brochure, and while Ferriss describes other automated businesses that might appeal to those who don’t see selling drugs online as their life’s work, there’s something a bit dilettantish about this career model that I don’t think will sit well with the ambitious young people Ferriss identifies as his book’s target market. Most of us want to find meaning in our work. All play and no work makes Jack a dull boy as surely as all work would—one wonders if Ferriss will be as excited about competitive tango when he’s 50 as he is in his 20s. Divorcing income from work might be smart for folks who have other meaningful obligations (e.g. single parents), but anyone who has seen those innumerable VH1 specials on trust fund children will know to fear that society would fall apart if all of us had that option.

That said, Ferriss does offer great advice on time management and re-examining your goals. Email junkies will benefit from his strict diet (check it twice a day at most). Most of us can do our jobs in less time. And if you really want to spend three months ballooning around the world, there’s no reason to wait until you’re too old to enjoy it. If you’re looking for permission to do such a crazy thing, The 4-Hour Workweek will provide it in spades.

Laura Vanderkam is the author of Grindhopping: Build a Rewarding Career without Paying Your Dues (McGraw-Hill).