On Time and Water

Reviews / Votes

Magnason's moving and heartfelt paean to glaciers turns the science of the climate crisis into a story of personal loss * Guardian * I loved this book so much - it is a cerebral tale, well told and unabashedly philosophical. It is dark, funny and grim. * The New York Times * Praise for The Casket of Time:
'The love child of Chomsky and Lewis Carroll.' -- Rebecca Solnit On Time and Water is about connections - across generations, cultures, landscapes, and species - showing us how delicate are the networks on which our survival depends, how precariously all natural life is poised on the brink of destruction. Combining memoir, interviews, literature, and science to give words to a catastrophe too enormous to comprehend, this book is a letter of farewell to lost worlds and a passionate appeal to preserve what remains. -- Anuradha Roy Andri Snaer Magnason's perspective is unique and compelling. He tries to understand, and tries to make the reader understand, why the climate crisis is not widely perceived as a distinct, transformative event in the manner of, say, the fall of the Berlin Wall or the attacks of September 11, 2001. The fundamental problem, as this book elucidates, is time. Climate change is a disaster in slow motion, and yet "slow" is a great deal faster than many people seem able to comprehend. -- Erica Wagner * Economist * One of the most original and thought-provoking books about the climate crisis - or any subject - in ages. I met Andri in Iceland in 2019, he's remarkable. I recommend the book, it's mind-expanding. -- Johann Hari Andri Snaer Magnason combines intimate history and collective mythology, personal essay and exploration of memory, geography and environment, to bring the elusive reality of climate change painfully and dangerously close to each of us. -- Paolo Giordano * Corriere della Sera * A wonderful and important book. -- Roman Krznaric