Internet

Reading a book about online polarisation is a bit like reading a murder mystery novel where the murderer is revealed on page one. We all know it was social media, on our devices, with the trolls, in the bedroom. What we don’t know is the human cost of our newly fragmented online world: the lives destroyed, the families torn apart, the friends permanently estranged when someone falls down an online rabbit hole.

Saving Time is inspired by the burnout many of us feel after years of lockdowns and working from home. She writes about her own experience of these years, the anxiety and loneliness, contemplating moss. This frame dominates Saving Time’s billing. As a parent of two boys living and working in a city distant from family, it’s what drew me to the book. This theme of embracing slowness is addressed in each chapter, each of which is interwoven with minutely observed vignettes from an unhurried journey through Oakland’s hinterland.