Summary | Excerpt | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' Opinion:
First Published:
Jan 2018, 368 pages
Paperback:
Dec 2018, 368 pages
Book Reviewed by:
Rory L. Aronsky
Buy This Book
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.
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.
Chapter 3: The Invention of the Timetable
i) The Fastest Thing You Ever Did See
Do you plan on being alive for the next two-and-a-half years? If the answer is Yes, you may begin building Mallard. This magnificent British steam locomotive, streamlined and Garter Blue, is available for construction each week from your newsagent, and if you keep the faith for 130 weeks, and buy all the bits required and assemble them, you will end up with a 500mm-length engine and tender (almost 20 inches), weighing about 2 kilos.
Mallard was originally built in Doncaster in 1938, but in 2013 the publishers Hachette offered the amateur modeler the chance to build a highly detailed replica as a part-work, a precision-tooled miniature of the 'O' gauge variety, designed to run on 32mm track ('track not included'). The model is made from brass, white metal, etched metal and an intricate metallic casting process called 'lost wax', and requires not only considerable patience ...
This lively tour through the "practical rather than ethereal applications of time" is full of many amazing delights...Garfield inspires a new way of looking at time with Timekeepers; a deeper, more curious look, and in that way he helps us make our worldviews wider...continued
Full Review
(596 words)
This review is available to non-members for a limited time. For full access,
become a member today.
(Reviewed by Rory L. Aronsky).
Daniel Pink, author of Drive
here 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.Simon Garfield's Timekeepers, is a book about our obsession with time. It is chock filled with the ways our lives revolve around it, the instruments we use to manage it, and some people's odd perspectives on it. Here are five quirky, fun facts from the book:
1. The Oxford English Dictionary keeps a list of frequently used nouns. The word life comes in at #9, year at #3, month is all the way down at #40. Time comes in at #1.
2. A paragraph from Timekeepers that must be seen to be believed:
A set of timekeeping instructions issued in August 1853 by W. Raymond Lee, the superintendent on the Boston and Providence Railroad, laid bare the complexities, and the propensity for human error. In part, it reads like a Marx Brothers script:...
This "beyond the book" feature is available to non-members for a limited time. Join today for full access.
If you liked Timekeepers, try these:
Around the World in Eighty Games
by Marcus du Sautoy
Published 2024
An award-winning mathematician explores the math behind the games we love and why we love to play them.
by Simon Winchester
Published 2019
The revered New York Times bestselling author traces the development of technology from the Industrial Age to the Digital Age to explore the single component crucial to advancement - precision - in a superb history that is both an homage and a warning for our future.
The Flower Sisters
by Michelle Collins Anderson
From the new Fannie Flagg of the Ozarks, a richly-woven story of family, forgiveness, and reinvention.
The House on Biscayne Bay
by Chanel Cleeton
As death stalks a gothic mansion in Miami, the lives of two women intertwine as the past and present collide.
The Funeral Cryer by Wenyan Lu
Debut novelist Wenyan Lu brings us this witty yet profound story about one woman's midlife reawakening in contemporary rural China.
Your guide toexceptional books
BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us.
