All the Time in the World: A Book of Hours

All the Time in the World takes its cue from an iconic component of medieval life, the book of hours, which prescribed certain readings & 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, & arresting anecdotes encompassing an array of cultures & eras. 

Subjects covered include the daylong ceremony of laying a royal Elizabethan tablecloth; the radicalization of sartorial chic in 1890s Paris; Nostradamus’s 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 & wine-fueled ascent of Mont Blanc; the elaborate treasure hunts concocted by London’s Bright Young Things; & 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.

°°°

Jessica Kerwin Jenkins is the author of Encyclopedia of the Exquisite: An Anecdotal History of Elegant Delights & All the Time in the World: A Book of Hours. She began her career in New York, writing for Women’s Wear Daily & for W magazine, later becoming W’s European editor in Paris. She writes for Vogue & lives on the coast of Maine.