The Book of Times

by Lesley Alderman

An endlessly fascinating, beautifully designed survey of time—how long things take, how long things last, and how we spend our days

Our relationship to time is complex and paradoxical: Time stands still. Time also flies. Tomorrow is another day. Yet there's no time like the present. We want to do more in less time, but wish we could slow the clock. And despite all our time-saving devices—iPhones, DVRs, high-speed trains—Americans feel that they have less leisure time than ever.

In an era when our time feels fractured and imperiled, The Book of Times encourages readers to ponder time used and time spent. How long does it take to find a new mate, digest a hamburger, or compose a symphony? How much time do we spend daydreaming, texting, and getting ready for work? The book challenges our beliefs and urges us to consider how, and why, some things get faster, some things slow down, and some things never change (the need for seven to eight hours of sleep).

Packed with compelling charts, lists, and quizzes, as well as new and intriguing research, The Book of Times is an addictive, browsable, and provocative look at the idea of time from every direction.

Genres: Nonfiction, Science, History, Adult

368 pages, Kindle Edition

First published December 26, 2012

About the author

Lesley Alderman is a Brooklyn-based writer and editor specializing in health, finance and psychology. She was a staff writer at Money magazine and a deputy editor at Real Simple magazine. She co-wrote the Patient Money column for The New York Times for three years. In addition to writing, Alderman teaches yoga to children in NYC public schools and serves on the board of The Rosa Vera Fund.

Reviews

[*yasmin* · Rating 2 out of 5]

عنوان کتاب خیلی غلط به چگونه از زمان درست استفاده کنیم ترجمه شده و عنوان اصلی book of times: from seconds to centuries a compendium of measures هست. من این کتاب رو با این تصور که کتابی برای مدیریت زمانه خریدم درصورتی که فقط اطلاعات نسبتا جالبی( بعضی وقت ها خیلی کسل کننده) در مورد این که هر فعالیتی چقدر طول میکشه به خواننده میده.

[Zeinab Soltani]

بیشتر، اطلاعات آماری از وقت گذاشتن انسان ها روی فعالیت های مختلفشون در اختیارمون قرار میده. نکات جالبی داره اما برای برنامه ریزی و استفاده درست از زمان کمکی (به من لااقل) نکرد.

[Heidi Boghosian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Informative and entertaining! The Book of Time assigns values to the mundane and the extraordinary, causing us to rethink activities we so often take for granted. Alderman's thoughtful and well-researched compendium is an engaging read. Highly recommend!

[mahatmanto · Rating 4 out of 5]

"americans love to gather data"
pernyataan ini menjelaskan bagaimana buku ini bisa lahir.
rupanya,
masyarakat amerika [juga masyarakat maju lainnya, seperti jepang, misalnya] suka mengumpulkan data. tentang apa saja. itu sebabnya mereka gemar bikin poll, survei, riset akademik dan berbagai studi lain.
dan kesukaan itu sudah terlembagakan.
pemerintah punya data berapa waktu yang digunakan warganya untuk berbagai jenis kegiatan: berapa waktu cewek-cewek pada bergossip, berapa waktu mereka ngomongin diet, berat badan dan fashion.
karena itu buku ini bisa lahir dan logis bila lahir dari masyarakat seperti itu.
jadi,
itu hal pertama yang terjawab ketika saya mengajukan keheranan: "kok buku kayak gini bisa muncul, bahannya dari mana ya?"
hal berikut adalah apa saja yang sempat terhitung atau dianggap penting untuk diketahui penggunaan waktunya. hampir semua hal dalam hidup kita bisa disajikan dalam angka. dari yang bersifat privat [seperti "how long does it take to reach orgasm?"] sampai yang bersifat publik ["how many hours do kids spend in school per year?"].
dengan ini maka tersingkaplah, atau terbukalah anatomi masyarakat amerika. khususnya penggunaan waktunya, yang memperlihatkan juga apa saja yang dianggap penting dalam kehidupan mereka.
data ini jelas amat mendukung masyarakat industri mereka, tapi bagi kita mungkin cuma jadi lucu-lucuan belaka. kita tidak punya tradisi mencatat penggunaan waktu, tidak ada lembaga survei yang kredibel melakukan itu, dan tidak/belum banyak perusahaan barang maupun jasa yang menggunakan data untuk jualan komoditasnya...

[Caitlin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book, the author upfront told us she could vouch for most of the facts, but the facts are always changing. I really apprecaited her honesty with that, some facts like sex time I found hard to believe but others were realistic and I knew them to be true.

By reading how much time you spend doing activities it really made me what to change the way I was spending mine. Below are some orginal thoughts and notes I found interesting in the first two chape ters.

Daily life.
Americans who identify themselves as very religious have higher personal well being than those who ID themselves as moderately or not religious at all.

I like the arts more then most. I am the twenty-three percent that go to art museums and 15 percent of the population who goto the library once a week.(some times more!)

Spending times with friends makes us happy but the content of what we talk about makes us happier . Poltics , economy and health reform makes us happier then sports, celebrity gossip and fashion.

Love Romance and sex life.
3 months to determine if the are a partner for marriage.

Sex averages 33 minutes, foreplay included.

Desire does change over time. Women want sex less and greater tenderness while women still want the same amount of sex as they did when they first started dating.

[Akef Rahmati · Rating 2 out of 5]

اگر این کتاب رو برای برنامه ریزی و پیشرفت در سبک زندگی قراره بخرید بهتره اونو برگردونید توی قفسه فروشگاه و یا هرچه سریعتر اونو برگردونید! چون فک نمیکنم به شما کمک زیادی بکنه و اطلاعات کتاب صرفا حقیقتهایی درباره زمان هست که ممکنه گاهی خسته کننده هم به نظر بیاد. کاملا متوجه ام که اسم کتاب که نشر
هنوز که برای جذب مشتری انتخاب کرده شما رو هم ممکنه شیفته خودش بکنه . همونطور که منو شیفته کرد و باعث شد دفعه بعد قبل از خرید یک کتاب درباره محتوای اون مطالعه بیشتری داشته باشم. این کتاب روان و سبکه و مناسب جاهایی هستش که شما بیکارید و از طرفی هم حوصله خوندن یک مطلب سنگین و عمیق رو ندارید. لزلی آندرمن(نویسنده کتاب)در مقدمه کتاب توضیح میده که من این کتاب رو نوشتم برای اینکه شما صرفا این حقیقتها رو درباره زمان بدونید نه بیشتر و نه کمتر و شاید هم درباره برنامه زندگی شما کمک بکنه. راستش به عقیده من این مطالب هیچ کمکی توی برنامه زندگی من نکرد اما میتونم مثلا بعدها اگه حرفی برای گفتن نداشتم برای دوستم تعریف کنم که میانگین بقل کردن در دنیا چند ثانیه طول میکشه و میانگین عمر انسانها معمولا چقدر هست. این چنین مطالب شاید زرد و بیمصرف

[Amanda Rahimian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is just a series of facts and statistics with no great writing connecting them all together. Some of the facts were interesting, but many were just plain boring. Also, a few times the author brought up a question in a section title such as “how long does the average person take to x, y, or z” and then would forget to answer the question! This happened at least twice in the book. All in all, not great.

[Reyhan 🌱 · Rating 1 out of 5]

کتاب هیچ ربطی به درست استفاده کردن از زمان نداره نمیدونم چرا این عنوان رو گرفته. اطلاعات آماری از این که چه چیزی در کجای دنیا چقدر طول میکشه…

[David · Rating 2 out of 5]

A better concept than a reality

I thought this sounded interesting, and many parts of it were, but running down the time it takes various things to occur is hard to do at book length. I think this would have been better if it was a bit shorter and had made liberal use of graphics.

[Tina Young · Rating 3 out of 5]

Literally a book about time and how much people spend time doing things. Nothing more, nothing less.

[Ali Sameti · Rating 2 out of 5]

یکم اسمش گول زننده س، اگر میخوای بدونی مردم دنیا وقتِ خودشون رو بیشتر صرف چه کارهایی میکنن میتونی بخونیش ولی فایده ای دیگه ای نداره

[Suible]

Interesting ... Worked for me better in small doses.

[Peyman · Rating 1 out of 5]

افتضاح بود

[Dylan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Honestly, I’m not 100% sure on how to “rate” this book. It is pretty much how I expected it to be, showing statistics on various events or actions in an easy to read while interesting fashion. Well, it accomplished that. The format of the book is clean and fast, having different categories for different… categories of things such as daily life, love, and body (fitness, etc). What I really liked about the book was the random occurrences of trivia, quizzes, excerpts, and exercises. Granted, I absolutely failed the quizzes I have come across, and have never tried any of the exercises due to laziness, but I appreciate that they are there and like to read them. That being said, I never really read the book. By that, I mean cover to cover. I usually grab it when I’m bored, open to the section I want to read about, and read anywhere from a couple to around 30 pages (depending on boredom) of the book. Unfortunately, with that method of reading it, I’ll probably end up missing something really good. I doubt I could read it normally. I would probably get overloaded with a bunch of numbers related to time, and then end up forgetting most of it. At least this way, I’ll retain the information I read.

Before, I mentioned how I wouldn't know how to rate this book, so here’s how it goes. I really like grabbing it every now and then and reading a bit of it, so I’ll choose the “really liked it” option of 4/5 stars.

*Copy won through Firstreads

[Patrice Sartor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Note that I didn't finish the entire book. Instead, I spent a couple of days reading select chapters aloud to my 13-year old son while we waited for another title to arrive in the library. It's a nifty book to thumb through in this manner, and you're certain to learn some things. For example, the percentage of people under age 25 who said they would stop eating a meal and read an electronic message is 49%!

That figure is from the Media chapter, though there are chapters for home life, love, work, the body, and so many more. The average adult yawns 5 times a day. I was surprised to learn the copyright date on this is 2013, since so many of the figures and data listed seemed to be from 2008. Maybe it takes a long time to compile all this sort of thing.

Entertaining, sometimes enlightening, never life-changing. If the data were presented in a more colorful format, I probably would have liked it better. I'm okay if that sounds shallow. Happy reading!

[Joanne Clarke Gunter · Rating 3 out of 5]

I enjoy reading most trivia-like books and I liked this one, but it isn't the best I have read. Some of the information I had read before in other books and the format of this book seems more like a high school or college data collecting project than a well thought out trivia book.

The book contains many tables of information linked to time measures. Some examples of tables in this book include: how long it takes to commute to work on a state by state basis, U.S. school hours of instruction compared to other countries, how long various foods last in a pantry/fridge/freezer, the life span of various appliances, the life expectancy in various countries, average length of first marriages in various countries, etc.

If you have stacks of trivia books like I do, this one won't really stand out, but it was still fun to read.

[Karen Melk · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this book! It's not necessarily meant to be read cover-to-cover, but I did this anyway because I was so into it. I took it on vacation and brought up topics from it at a party and at dinners - made great conversation. I think that's what I enjoyed most about The Book of Times - reading short blurbs aloud, and this got the whole group talking, discussing, even debating. I found myself thinking about little things I learned from the book, especially when I find myself wasting time ...... Highly recommend! Lesley AldermanThe Book of Times: From Seconds to Centuries, a Compendium of Measures

[melydia · Rating 2 out of 5]

As one might expect, this is a collection of assorted factoids about time - more specifically, how people spend their time. It's not nearly as interesting as I'd hoped. For one thing, almost all the data is from surveys, and many of those are from internet surveys, and we all know how accurate those are. The results are often contradictory as well: for example, on one page we learn that smoking takes nine years off your life, but just two pages later we learn it's only four. This general lack of continuity isn't helped any by the large number of typos, some quite prominent. How long do rock banks last? I didn't understand until I read the list and realized it was supposed to be rock bands. In short, unless you are desperate for a book of trivia about how people may or may not actually spend their time, I'd suggest giving this one a miss.

[Nina Ardianti · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very light book, you can read it anywhere.

Even though at first I thought this book is under my expectation, but overall I enjoyed it. You can't expect this book tells you everything in depth, it mainly tells you about (as the blurbs said) how long things take, how long things last, and how we spend our days.

The most interesting thing for me, I repeatedly found myself thinking about little things, random thoughts, and even quotes and sayings scattered in this book.

[Story of Choice · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kudos to the author for drawing attention to subjectivity and urging readers to challenge everything they encounter. In keeping with her emphasis on the relativity of time and experience, Lesley Alderman aptly prepares the unsuspecting reader to read critically by explaining the precise meaning and meaninglessness of statistical averages, on which her book is based. The subsequent miscellany is interesting and accessible, enjoyable to dip into on any page.

[Charlie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Received this free book as a Goodreads winner.
It's one of those books that you don't have to start at the beginning. Just thumb thru it and enjoy it. Kinda of a book with information that you can throw out to your friends and they'll say 'What?'
Gee, have fun with this book.

[Dar · Rating 3 out of 5]

I kept The Book of Times by Lesley Alderman on my iPad to dip into two minutes at a go. It is a whole book of stats about averages: how much time we spend on housework or watching sports or “wasting time” browsing the Internet at work. I love random facts like these and found it very entertaining.

[Suzanne Stroh · Rating 3 out of 5]

How long things take. As with epigrams and aphorisms, best digested in small bites. Perfect loo reading.

[TheSaint · Rating 3 out of 5]

You know you're a reader when you need a little something to read while your reading other books! This one is perfect for that. Just dip in, encyclopedia-like and take a little mental break.

[Calvin Utomo · Rating 2 out of 5]

Read it at the airport and plane, just some facts about the times

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

Fun read.

[Aaron Wong · Rating 4 out of 5]

Many valuable nuggets!