cover image UNWINDING THE CLOCK: Ten Thoughts on Our Relationship to Time

UNWINDING THE CLOCK: Ten Thoughts on Our Relationship to Time

Bodil Jonsson, , trans. from the Swedish by Tiina Nunnally. . Harcourt, $20 (160pp) ISBN 978-0-15-100539-0

This bestselling European self-help volume, for which translation rights have sold in more than 10 countries, has a notably Continental feel. It's not just that physicist Jönsson includes local references ("Picture a map of the Swedish countryside before and after the land redistribution"). It's more that her contemplative tone lacks the evangelical earnestness of most American inspirational efforts; she even acknowledges that "[a] book like this can affect only what already exists inside you." "Experienced time" differs from clock time, Jönsson observes, explaining that she favors cell phone–free train compartments so she can experience time, rather than merely spend it (or listen to others do so), as she travels. Be mindful, she advises, that tasks differ in interest and difficulty, and thus require different "setup times"; she urges her readers to "dare to be a hermit." "Thoughts take time," Jönsson muses, and we must soon reassess "the thought patterns of industrialization." To "create a sense of the here and now," she hearkens back to Bertrand Russell's emphasis on knowledge, love and empathy. Not merely encouraging behavioral changes, she illuminates the wisdom in the mundane: in hindsight, she observes, most problems seem diminished, whereas in anticipation, problems loom large. "A combination of problem-dominated visions and problem-reducing backcasting might give us... a realistic perspective on the future." The final chapter urges optimism and drawing on new experiences to create "new standards for measuring new ideas." (June)