Today I will start "New Achilles" by Christian Cameron. I have high hopes as he never let me down so far. He is I think my favourite historical fiction novelist after the greats such as Waltarinand Graves.

Earlier I finished a non-fiction book called Producing Desire by Dror Zevi; it was about the evolution of gender relations and sexual life in the Ottoman Empire. Sounds niche but I recommend it.

Lafargue's "the right to be lazy" enlarges on this. I read it long time ago so don't remember his suggestion but the whole book is about your questions. Lafargue was Marx's son in law btw.