Time Warped [Paperback]

If there is one impression you'll take away from this book, it may well be the remarkable tenacity of those prepared to carry out scientific research in the field of time perception. You'll read about the young French man who chose to maroon himself in total darkness in an ice cave for two months, of volunteers prepared to step blindfold to the very edge of a deadly drop down a stairwell (to find out if extreme anxiety makes time apparently pass more slowly), and the dedication of Marigold Linton, who made copious notes on her daily life for five years and tested herself every month on how accurately she recalled them (not a trivial as it might sound - by the end of the experiment she was having to choose from over two hundred possible memories, and the process of testing took an entire day).

The way that our brains percieve the passage of time is something we're all familiar with. Who hasn't wondered where the years have gone when children we remember being toddlers turn out to be doing their A levels? Or wondered why time drags in a queue, but races by when we're having fun? Cleverly, Claudia Hammond has chosen a topic thet just about everyone can relate to, but many people take completely for granted until they think about it. Hammond will tell you gripping stories of people who have either chosen, or been forced to, do precisely that. One of the most dramatic ones is that of the BBC correspondent Alan Johnston who was held hostage in Gaza, confined to one room with no idea how long he'd be held in captivity and, quite literally, nothing to do. Accounts like this bring what could have been a dry and academic subject to life.

Hammond is an excellent communicator, as those familiar with her work on BBC Radio 4 will know. In fact, you might well find yourself hearing her chirpy voice in your mind as the pages race by. If I had one criticism of this book, it would be that it reads so easily that you may not give sufficient attention to the complex concepts being described. I was particularly intrigued by the chapter where she talks about how people, quite literally, picture time. Do you see it running away from you, or yourself running towards it? Why do some people imagine the months going anti-clockwise around a wheel, and does anybody have the right to tell them that's the wrong way round? Does your concept of "before" and "after" vary according to whether you write your language right to left? And, finally, can you really be sure you remember the year Princess Diana died, and did you realise that if you remember the moment you heard the news, that might well be because is happened on a Saturday night? (That means you heard on Sunday morning, a day different enough from the usual routine for the majority of people to make it more memorable than a Wednesday or Thursday).

This is the ideal read for a long train journey - informative, stimulating and yet accessible. It's also nicely produced, if a little overpriced (RRP, that is). A worthy addition to Canongate's growing non-fiction list.

I don't generally read a lot of non-fiction but the description for this book caught my attention, as I certainly feel I am ruled by time (rather than the other way round). Even on holiday, I am always checking my watch and I allow my feelings about what the time is to dictate what I do next. (I hadn't really given this any thought before, but it seems a bit pathetic now that I have noticed!)

So, I thought, this is definitely the book for me! And yes, I found it fascinating! I loved the insights into our own psyche, and the understanding it gave me of why we behave the way we do around time. And I particularly enjoyed the stories about the experiences of various people who did extraordinary, and fascinating things as part of their researches into their perceptions of time.

This book gave me plenty to think about. Whether it affects my behaviours in the long term remains to be seen, but it has certainly given me a lot to think about in relation to how I can manage my time better.

I go with Einstein, who, I'm told, said there's no such thing as time - despite the fact that I appear to be suffering heavily from its ravages... This book, although perhaps not expressly agreeing with AE's view, seems to underline that notion, because a considerable part of it is about how and why the perception of time differs within us and under different circumstances - and how we may control our own perception of it, ie, make it go faster or slower, according to needs. It's thus more about human psychology than about the abstract notion of time as dealt with in popular science fiction. This is hardly surprising, because the author is a well-known, media-prominent psychologist.

To underline its many points, the book contains a host of anecdotes relating to time-linked experiences of many different individuals, from the prominent to the obscure, and a nice sprinkling of pithy quotes - I liked the one from, Kierkegarde, "Life can only be understood backwards, but must be lived forwards." The final 50-odd pages deal with how we can change our relationship with time and contains a plethora of advice to that end, based on scientifically-based research, including modern brain scanning techniques; so if you've ever wanted to know how to deal with the boredom of those long, tedious waits in the doctor's or hospital waiting rooms, this is for you. Some of the researched findings may seem like common sense, but it's nice to have them confirmed.

I rate popular science according to how easily it reads, and how well the writer can maintain my interest; this book scores well on both counts, and is unlikely to disappoint anyone - other than, perhaps, a competing psychologist.