Jenny Odell’s “Saving Time,” offers us different ways to experience time — inspired by pre-industrial cultures, ecological cues, and geological timescales — that can bring within reach a more humane, responsive way of living.

“Saving Time” tugs at the seams of reality as we know it — the way we experience time itself — and rearranges it, imagining a world not centered on work, the office clock, or the profit motive.

If we can “save” time by imagining a life, identity, and source of meaning outside these things, time might also save us.

A chance to look at how we live. Always governed by time, mostly lack of it. A philosophical look at how time dictates to us. A thought provoking book asking us to take back control.

Saving Time tugs at the seams of reality as we know it. The way we experience time itself and rearrange it. Imagine a world not centred on work, the office clock, or the profit motive. If we can "save" time by imagining a life, identity, and source of meaning outside these things, time might also save us.

While this book might be thought of as self-help, it's so much more. The author talks about time, the world around us, and how we can change our lives by rethinking time as we've known it. I am the first to admit that I can not focus on one thing, and feel like I’m always on the search for something and have to be doing three things at once because I’m wasting time. What a delight this book is in teaching us how to slow down and whether we really are wasting time, who defines what time is and why do we think we are wasting it?

The E-Book could be improved and more user-friendly, such as links to the chapters, no significant gaps between words and a cover for the book would be better. It is very document-like instead of a book. A star has been deducted because of this. An example of this is throughout the book, the link "9781847926845_savingtime.indd 41 9/30/22 1:45 PM" is mid-sentence and on the majority of pages throughout the book.

Non-fiction and fiction are usually segmented well but here is a truly unique book that straddles both, and that manages to combine cotemporary self-help psychology, philosophical thought, and economics insight. Odell traces the historical development of the precious commodity called ‘time’ and the expectations heaped upon otherwise privileged twenty-first century dwellers to use it productively and profitably. She also deliberates how the commodity of time is used in prison environments, in nature, and from economic angles. There are intersections with issues of privilege, gender, class and disability, and at times I found it hard to follow the signposts from the introductory chapter sections stemming from the author’s biography to the major points she really wanted to make, but on the whole I would recommend this unique, thought-provoking book. Thank you to the publishers and to NetGalley for the free ARC that allowed me to explore Odell’s work and to publish this unbiased book review.

I have reviewed Saving Time for book recommendation and sales site LoveReading.co.uk.

I have chosen it as a LoveReading Star Book and Liz Pick of the Month. Please see link for full review.

This book, due to be published on 23 March 2023, was really interesting and well-written, focusing mostly on time perceived through work, and time at the environmental crisis scale. On work, I found Odell was easier to follow, and maybe more engaging, highlighting the extraction of time and resources that come with labour. At times it feels like a universal experience -

"Some of those frustrations, whether you are advantaged or disadvantaged, include the following: having to sell your time to live, having to choose the lesser of two evils, having to say something while believing in another, having to build yourself up while starved of substantive connection, having to work while the sky is red outside, and having to ignore everything and everyone whom, in your heart of hearts, it is killing you to ignore".

Because it is not a self-help book, she makes obvious but rarely seen distinctions: she uses Lindas and non-Lindas to highlight that not having "enough time" is not the same for a busy executive with the kids's ballet and swimming lessons to sort out and the housekeeping coming every other week than it is for a poor single mother trying to juggle three low-paying jobs to feed her family. And she is right, and it is not talked about very much in typical time-management books. I don't have the same 24 hours a day as Beyonce.

The second half of the book focuses on the climate and the urgency to do something, while time is running out and most of us can only be witnesses to what is happening. She highlights the absurdity of having to go to work when the world is (literally) burning around you, and yet you still have to produce, still have to show up, still have to create monetary value.

Compared to "How to Do Nothing", I found "Saving Time" less structured and less easy to follow. At times, especially when Odell writes about the environment, I found myself thinking I would have preferred two separate books rather than both topics loosely linked together into one. But it was still beautifully written, engaging and clever. I wish I could ask Odell for a coffee and listen to her talk about everything.