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Many years ago, before I came to Powell’s, I took a job at a now-defunct bookstore. Among other duties, my job involved receiving and shelving books and magazines…

A brief sidenote, but a germane one because the topic is one’s relationship to time: I have shelved hundreds of thousands of books in my time, and the book industry is subject to many whims and fads around both content and packaging (In the late '90s, if an author was pictured on the cover, they had to be touching their face. It was the law.), but shelving magazines left indelible time capsules in my memory, like the solid year that Avril Lavigne was on every teen magazine’s collage cover every single month, and I was too old to listen to her music then. The monthly periodical clock was a big part of my life for years.

Anyway, back to my other tedious anecdote: a week into that job — which I had taken with the understanding that my shifts started at 8 or 9 am, depending on the day — my manager came by and informed me that they felt that more pre-opening time was needed for inventory work and would I start at 5:15 am every day instead? I don’t remember if I said it out loud, or just thought it, but I felt I was too new to say no. And for the next eight months, I fought the clock and worked a schedule that was incompatible with my natural sleep cycle and social life. I was in constant fear of waking up late and being tardy or absent for shifts. I lived like a hermit zombie — I might have done so anyway, but a manager’s whim affected every aspect of my life for an extended period of time.

I have long regarded that situation as my own fault, for not being assertive and/or adaptable enough, but Jenny Odell has me rethinking that. (One of the great gifts of both of her books is how much they make a reader rethink a multitude of assumptions and received wisdom.)

In her new book, Saving Time, Jenny Odell questions the origins and consequences of nearly every aspect of our various timekeeping systems and the ways we use them to dehumanize ourselves and each other. She does this in a way that is compelling and entertaining, a unique skill that will be familiar to readers of her previous book, How to Do Nothing. One of the book's true delights is Odell's ability to wittily describe ideas and examples from a multitude of sources, from ancient philosophers to contemporary pop culture, all with the eye of an artist and the wisdom of a true appreciator of the natural world.

Admittedly, I was inclined to agree with almost any critique of the time clock as an institution and obsessive time management as a practice, but I wasn’t expecting to question the four seasons — especially because I now program Powell's seasonal sales! — but Odell’s arguments are once again utterly convincing and obvious in retrospect (the upcoming Spring Sale will go on regardless, however).

Odell’s arguments are once again utterly convincing and obvious in retrospect

All the qualities that made How to Do Nothing a surprise bestseller are present in Saving Time, but her sophomore effort is even more ambitious and more thought-provoking. Do yourself a favor and claim the time to read it.