Garfield Simon. Timekeepers. How the World Became Obsessed with Time

Canongate Books, 2016. — 368 p. — ISBN 9781782113201,1782113207.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.
Time flies like an arrow, but fruit flies like a banana. The Beatles learn to be brilliant in an hour and a half. 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 at the click of a camera. The timetable arrives by steam train. A US Senator begins a speech that will last for 25 hours. 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.
Timekeepers is a book about our obsession with time and our desire to measure it, control it, sell it, film it, perform it, immortalise it and make it meaningful. It has two simple intentions: to tell some illuminating stories, and to ask whether we have all gone completely nuts.Introduction: Very, Very Early or Very, Very Late
The Accident of Time
Leaving the Ground
The Shortness of Life and How to Live It
How the French Messed Up the Calendar
The Invention of the Timetable
The Fastest Thing You Ever Did See
Was Ever Tyranny More Monstrous?
The Beet Goes On
The Way to Play the Ninth
Just How Long Should a CD Be?
Revolver
How Much Talking Is Too Much Talking?
In the Time of Moses
Talking It Over
Movie Time
How You Get to the Clock
Oncoming Train
Horology Part One: How to Make a Watch
A Very Difficult Floor
Just What Is It about the Swiss?
Roger Bannister Goes Round and Round
Vietnam. Napalm. Girl.
The Split Second
«I am Muybridge and this is a message from my wife»
The Day Shift
We Will Crush, Squash, Slaughter Yamaha!
The Boss from Hell
Horology Part Two: How to Sell the Time
Vasco da Gama Special Edition
Welcome to Baselworld
Uh-oh
In Which We Name the Guilty Man
The Most Valuable Watch on the Planet
Time Tactics That Work!
The Berry Season
The Lean Email Simple System
Life Is Short, Art Is Long
The Clock Is a Clock
White People Are Crazy
Slowing Down the World
A Place Where Time Stands Still
Living Frenchly
Faster Food
The British Museum and the Story of Us
The Book of Hours
Doomed and Marooned
Those Who Feel Differently
Epilogue: Humility Watch
Further Reading and Acknowledgements
Picture Credits