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Cargando... All the Time in the World: A Book of Hourspor Jessica Kerwin Jenkins
   Ninguno Actualmente no hay Conversaciones sobre este libro. 2   NielsenGW | Oct 22, 2013 |  sin reseñas | añadir una reseña
"All the Time in the World proffers a miscellany of customs, traditions, and pleasures people have pursued throughout the ages. An antidote to the contemporary cult of Getting Things Done, the book takes its cue from the medieval books of hours, which prescribed certain readings and contemplations for various parts of the day and year. Full of witty bon mots, interesting etymologies, and arresting anecdotes, the book encompasses an array of cultures and eras including ancient Greece, Renaissance Florence, 1930s Shanghai, and the Hollywood Hills of the late 1960s, drifting through the worlds of fashion, beauty, art, food, or travel. Focusing on the glamorous, eccentric, unusual and sublime, subjects covered include: the daylong ceremony of laying a royal Elizabethan tablecloth; the radicalization of sartorial chic in 1890s Paris; Nostradamus' belief in the aphrodisiac power of jam (and the book of recipes he published the same year as his predictions); the sensuous practice of sniffing incense in 15th century Japan; the American fascination with flaming desserts; the short-lived artistic discipline of "lumia," or visual music; the Ottoman Empire's 17th century ban on coffee; the magnetic atmosphere that fueled Parisian highlife in the 1920s; Henriette d'Angeville's fearless ascent of Mont Blanc, armed with 13 guides, 24 roast chickens, and 18 bottles of wine; the elaborate treasure hunts concocted by London's Bright Young Things; and the musical revolution known as bebop. Entertaining, unexpected, and charming, All the Time in the World digs up the forgotten treasures of the past and inspires a passion for good living in the present"-- No se han encontrado descripciones de biblioteca. |
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 Google Books — Cargando...GénerosSistema Decimal Melvil (DDC)390Social sciences Customs, Etiquette, Folklore Customs and folkloreClasificación de la Biblioteca del CongresoValoraciónPromedio: (3.9)
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Jenkins’s book takes that format and spins it. There are chapters and sections for each month and specific times of the day, ranging from 6 AM to 5 AM the next day. At each time, she gives a peek into historical events that center around that time. For instance, at 8 AM, she details the awakening and dressing ceremony of Louis XIV of France (which happened at 8 AM each day during his reign). At 3:51 PM, she tells the story of how Nellie Bly arrived at Jersey City (at that precise time) and beat Phileas Fogg’s fictional record of circling the globe in eighty days (she did it in just over 72 days). At 11 PM, there’s the tale of the first reading of Howl by Allen Ginsberg (just after 11 PM) and how that made its mark on literary culture.
Each snippet is fun and they make the book very quick to read. There’s a bit of historical whiplash that comes with reading vignette after vignette, but the overall effect is quite dazzling. You realize that history is not just a broad, sweeping beast, but rather a collection of individual moments, and those moments can happen at any time of the day. These collections of historical trinkets are fast becoming my favorite type of book as they remind me of my favorite magazine: mental_floss. Like so many other books in this style, the reader can take small bites and come back for more whenever they like. A very fun book. (