Time and Place: A Pocket Book on the Art of Calendars

In Time and Place, Alexandra Harris explores different forms of calendar-making, and discovers in them a delicate weave of seasonality and locality that inspires us all to look afresh at our everyday surroundings and enjoy the turning of the year.  

Dates are invented things. Nothing in nature decrees that today is today. But for millennia humans have divided time into portions, and given those portions names which are shared widely across cultures, creating a common agreement on the date. This convention is useful in practical ways: we can make arrangements and can communicate time elapsed or time ahead. But the calendar also makes a certain kind of truth and establishes that today is today. As calendars and almanacs developed, art from their specific time and place was naturally incorporated. In this small book showcasing the finest and most interesting art that has gone into almanacs, from the eight century onwards, Alexandra Harris brings in everything from Benedictine calendars to Old Moore's Almanack.