This pictorial and textual meditation on the meaning of time is based on the Einsteinian principle that our perception of time is relative. And yet each of us is faced with the challenge of making sense of it.

Children’s and Young Adult

Subtitled By the Time You’ve Read This Sentence, 21 Children will Have Come into the World, this lavish paperback is not merely an encyclopaedia of data about the quantity which mysteriously gives everything on Earth a fourth dimension, including memory and the stamp of impermanence. There is astonishing ingenuity behind David Böhm’s conceptual approach to the illustrated reference book, which he has already successfully employed in his previous books exploring the functioning of the head, modern urban planning and the role of Antarctica in our planet’s ecosystem.

In Now Böhm introduces older school-age readers to the variable length of time and its influence on our inner selves, poses philosophical questions about its purpose and also teaches us to allow ourselves moments of meaningful boredom within that relativity, while time continues to flow steadily on, driven by laws it is not necessary – or perhaps even advisable – for us to know about. The pace at which the book examines its subject is no less dynamic. Fun facts in the style of Dorling Kindersley alternate with collages and comic strips; a section in the form of a diary is followed by a striking visual call to action – in part an ecological one, so that we will still have something to measure with our timepieces in the future.
Age 9+