In Search of Now: The Science of the Present Moment

by Jo Marchant

A mind–bending but brilliantly accessible exploration of the shifting science behind the reality of time.


What is Now? This immediate moment, what we’re experiencing right now ... it bathes us like air, or gravity. Yet when we try to grasp this quality, to scrutinize it or bring it into focus, it vanishes, slipping through our fingers like a dream. And worse, according to the most trusted models of physics, Now doesn’t even exist. If all this is so, then what, exactly, are we experiencing? How do we carve out time, sensation, self, and meaning from a blank, Now–less canvas?


In In Search of Now, award–winning science writer Jo Marchant attempts to answer these questions with characteristic flair and clarity, taking us on a grand tour of the latest thinking from physics, neuroscience, cosmology, and psychiatry about the fundamental essence and individual experience of time. Part personal journey, part philosophical meditation, and above all a fascinating scientific exploration, In Search of Now shows us what we can learn about time, both from the outside in—the cosmic perspective of physics—and as we experience it, from the inside out.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction

336 pages, Hardcover

Expected publication March 17, 2026

About the author

Dr Jo Marchant is an award-winning science journalist based in London. She has a PhD in genetics and medical microbiology from St Bartholomew’s Hospital Medical College in London, and an MSc in Science Communication (with a dissertation in evidence-based medicine) from Imperial College London. She has worked as an editor at New Scientist and at Nature, and her articles have appeared in publications including The Guardian, Wired UK, The Observer Review, New Scientist and Nature. Her radio and TV appearances include BBC Radio 4’s Start the Week and Today programmes, CNN and National Geographic. She has lectured around the world. Her book Decoding the Heavens was shortlisted for the 2009 Royal Society Prize for Science Books.

Reviews

[Anya Rose · Rating 4 out of 5]

I can tell this book took serious effort. It’s painstakingly researched and carefully constructed. The idea that we can only distinguish events roughly 20 to 60 milliseconds apart, and that anything closer collapses into a single moment, really landed for me. It also reinforces the book’s point that “now” may be an illusion, with the mind continually revising past experience to assemble what feels like the present, and even the self.