Entertaining, unexpected, and full of charm, the follow-up to Jessica Kerwin Jenkins' Encyclopedia of the Exquisite presents a miscellany of engaging stories, detailing the intriguing customs, traditions, and guilty pleasures pursued throughout the ages.
All the Time in the World takes its cue from an iconic component of medieval life, the book of hours, which prescribed certain readings and contemplations for certain parts of the day throughout the year. Divided into more than seventy-five entries, All the Time in the World is brimming with witty bons mots, interesting etymologies, and arresting anecdotes encompassing an array of cultures and eras. Subjects covered include the daylong ceremony of laying a royal Elizabethan tablecloth; the radicalization of sartorial chic in 1890s Paris; Nostradamus' belief in the aphrodisiac power of jam; the sensuous practice of sniffing incense in fifteenth-century Japan; the American fascination with flaming desserts; the short-lived artistic discipline of "lumia," or visual music; the evolution of coffee from a religious ritual to a forbidden delight in the Middle East; Henriette d'Angeville's fearless and wine-fueled ascent of Mont Blanc; the elaborate treasure hunts concocted by London's Bright Young Things; and the musical revolution known as bebop. An antidote to the contemporary cult of "getting things done," All the Time in the World revives forgotten treasures of the past while inspiring a passion for good living in the present. Introduction
January – Skaters Glide on Ice
February – Keats Loves a Loses
March – Pilgrims Embark
April – Cherry Blossoms Fall
May – Desert Roses Bloom
June – Blondin Crosses Niagara Falls
July – Fruit Makes Jam
August – Ruth St. Denis Heads East
September – Moon Gazers Convene
October – Instantanéisme is Born
November – Europe Develops a Taste for Pineapple
December – The Lord of Misrule Reigns
"Jessica Kerwin Jenkins shows us how abundant a source of wisdom the
history of civilization can be for constructing our days-month by month,
minute by minute-into an artful and mindful cosmos of activity and
repose."
"This lovely and lovingly researched literary gem encompasses diverse eras and cultures and reveals a world of 'fancies' and intriguing bits of history…There is much to contemplate and marvel over in Jenkins' scholarly and highly entertaining book of exuberance."
"This compendium of cultural curiosities delivers equal parts education and inspiration with a lively voice and a tasteful nostalgia for slower, more deliberate, and arguably more entertaining times. When the clock ticks, the scene shifts to a new and delightfully unexpected snippet of history. The morning hours bring pancakes (complete with gluten-free recipe), midday watches the slow demise of the siesta, and giddy dancers waltz toward midnight. The cast ranges from the glamorous to starving artists to far-flung ancients…An insightful and contemplative study in culture and all its frivolous progress."
"A literary excursion around the clock and through the year in miniature essays about a host of diverse, fanciful topics…In its chronological presentation, there are more than seventy-five chunks of oddities of civilization from, for example, the mounting taste for coffee to old Shanghai's cabarets…A small cabinet of wonder, detailing some diverting oddments and minutiae of past times."
