Timekeepers
How the World Became Obsessed With Time
Published on 29. September 2016
Book
Hardback
368 pages
978-1-78211-319-5 (ISBN)
Description
SUNDAY TIMES CULTURE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2016
OBSERVER SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2016
Not so long ago we timed our lives by the movement of the sun. These days our time arrives atomically and insistently, and our lives are propelled by the notion that we will never have enough of the one thing we crave the most. How have we come to be dominated by something so arbitrary?
The compelling stories in this book explore our obsessions with time. An Englishman arrives back from Calcutta but refuses to adjust his watch. Beethoven has his symphonic wishes ignored. A moment of war is frozen forever. The timetable arrives by steam train. A woman designs a ten-hour clock and reinvents the calendar. Roger Bannister becomes stuck in the same four minutes forever. A British watchmaker competes with mighty Switzerland. And a prince attempts to stop time in its tracks.
Timekeepers is a vivid exploration of the ways we have perceived, contained and saved time over the last 250 years, narrated in the highly inventive and entertaining style that bestselling author Simon Garfield is fast making his own. As managing time becomes the greatest challenge we face in our lives, this multi-layered history helps us tackle it in a sparkling new light.
OBSERVER SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2016
Not so long ago we timed our lives by the movement of the sun. These days our time arrives atomically and insistently, and our lives are propelled by the notion that we will never have enough of the one thing we crave the most. How have we come to be dominated by something so arbitrary?
The compelling stories in this book explore our obsessions with time. An Englishman arrives back from Calcutta but refuses to adjust his watch. Beethoven has his symphonic wishes ignored. A moment of war is frozen forever. The timetable arrives by steam train. A woman designs a ten-hour clock and reinvents the calendar. Roger Bannister becomes stuck in the same four minutes forever. A British watchmaker competes with mighty Switzerland. And a prince attempts to stop time in its tracks.
Timekeepers is a vivid exploration of the ways we have perceived, contained and saved time over the last 250 years, narrated in the highly inventive and entertaining style that bestselling author Simon Garfield is fast making his own. As managing time becomes the greatest challenge we face in our lives, this multi-layered history helps us tackle it in a sparkling new light.
Reviews / Votes
Thoroughly enjoyable and illuminating . . . Stuffed with fascinating material * * Observer * * Digressive, gossipy, thoughtful and thoroughly entertaining . . . Simon Garfield is an exuberant truffle-hound of the recondite and delightful factoid * * The Sunday Times * * A sort of museum between hard covers. Timekeepers is as good as pop history gets * * Sunday Express * * An eclectic collection of explorations of our relationships with time . . . Very readable * * The Times * * Delightful * * Sunday Telegraph * * Time well spent . . . Simon Garfield has made his name as an author who can spin fascinating narratives out of subjects that seem, on the face of it, narrow to the point of being dull * * Financial Times * * Delightful . . . Gloriously funny . . . Garfield has an astonishing capacity for meticulous research and a wonderful ability to select the best stories to entertain us * * Daily Express * * Engaging . . . Engrossing * * Mail on Sunday * * Entertaining . . . jaunty . . . Scholarly but jokey, with a magpie's appetite for glittering trivia, Garfield is as eager to amuse as to inform, and achieves both * * Telegraph * * Hugely enjoyable -- ROB MCKIE * * Observer * * In this book, brilliant cultural historian Simon Garfield assembles a host of intriguing characters who have tried to bend time to their own rules, and questions how we came to be ruled by something so arbitrary * * Elle * * Garfield's anecdotal, science-friendly book explores the tyranny of time and our desire to control it * * Saga * * There could be no better guide than Simon Garfield for this journey into time and its meaning for our lives. From the assembly line to the French Revolution, he covers the quirks of the clock with insight and wry enthusiasm. A riveting, educational read -- DANIEL PINK, author of Drive A delightful study of timekeeping . . . Garfield is as eager to amuse as to inform, and achieves both * * Telegraph * *More details
Edition
Main
Language
English
Place of publication
Edinburgh
United Kingdom
Product notice
With dust jacket
Dimensions
Height: 220 mm
Width: 144 mm
Thickness: 33 mm
Weight
505 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78211-319-5 (9781782113195)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
01/2020
Canongate Books
€18.18
Available for download
Person
Simon Garfield is the author of seventeen acclaimed books of non-fiction including A Notable Woman (as editor), To the Letter, On the Map, Just My Type and Mauve. His study of AIDS in Britain, The End of Innocence, won the Somerset Maugham prize. www.simongarfield.com