Why am I passionate about this?

Throughout my life, I have been fascinated by humanity’s place within deeper time. As a boy, I collected rocks and fossils, and at university studied geology. The long term has also been a theme running throughout my journalism career at New Scientist and the BBC, and it inspired my research during a recent fellowship at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the US. I believe we need to embrace a deeper view of time if we are to navigate through this century’s grand challenges – and if we can, there’s hope, agency, and possibility to be discovered along the way. 


I wrote

Book cover of The Long View: Why We Need to Transform How the World Sees Time

What is my book about?

Humans are unique in our ability to understand time, able to comprehend the past and future like no other species.…

Shepherd is reader supported. When you buy books, we may earn an affiliate commission.

The books I picked & why

Book cover of Timefulness: How Thinking Like a Geologist Can Help Save the World

Richard Fisher Why did I love this book?

I’ve been fascinated by geology since I was a teenager: I had a collection of rocks and fossils in my bedroom, including trilobites, ammonites, and crystals of “blue john” from Derbyshire.

So Marcia Bjornerud’s book about her geological perspective on time really resonated with me. She blends scientific insight with personal stories wonderfully. On one page, she is writing about the mind-expanding timescales of deep time while on the next rooting those timescales in personal, human experience.

One particular story she tells about accidentally smashing an ancient crystal in a moment of rare avarice as a young woman stuck with me for months, and aptly captures the fragility of the Anthropocene period we live within.

And gosh, isn’t the title – “timefulness” – great? I wish I had invented myself!

By Marcia Bjornerud,

Why should I read it?

5 authors picked Timefulness as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Why an awareness of Earth's temporal rhythms is critical to our planetary survival

Few of us have any conception of the enormous timescales of our planet's long history, and this narrow perspective underlies many of the environmental problems we are creating. The lifespan of Earth can seem unfathomable compared to the brevity of human existence, but this view of time denies our deep roots in Earth's history-and the magnitude of our effects on the planet. Timefulness reveals how knowing the rhythms of Earth's deep past and conceiving of time as a geologist does can give us the perspective we need…


Book cover of The Invention of Tomorrow: A Natural History of Foresight

Richard Fisher Why did I love this book?

I first met Suddendorf – one of the three co-authors of this book – in Australia back in 2016.

He is a German professor living in Queensland (with an accent untroubled by antipodean influence), and is best known for studying the skill of “mental time travel”. From him I learnt that this is one of the foundational abilities of humanity, which may well have steered our entire evolution.

We can project our minds across the past, present, and future at will - unlike pretty much any other animal. Therefore it’s crucial as a skill if we want to take the long view, and we shouldn’t take it for granted. However, as Suddendorf and colleagues write in this terrific book, it’s also a “Promethean” talent, and is far from perfect.

If we want to take a longer view, understanding our cognitive faculties is key – this book serves as a brilliant introduction to how we think about the future. 

By Thomas Suddendorf, Jonathan Redshaw, Adam Bulley

Why should I read it?

1 author picked The Invention of Tomorrow as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

Our ability to think about the future is one of the most powerful tools at our disposal. In The Invention of Tomorrow, cognitive scientists Thomas Suddendorf, Jonathan Redshaw, and Adam Bulley argue that its emergence transformed humans from unremarkable primates to creatures that hold the destiny of the planet in their hands.
Drawing on their own cutting-edge research, the authors break down the science of foresight, showing us where it comes from, how it works, and how it made our world. Journeying through biology, psychology, history, and culture, they show that thinking ahead is at the heart of human nature-even…


Book cover of Footprints: In Search of Future Fossils

Richard Fisher Why did I love this book?

I recently travelled with David to make a BBC film about Hutton’s Unconformity, an important geological feature in Scotland that led to the ‘discovery’ of deep time.

But along the same coastline, we also came across a nuclear power station and a cement works - both creating unwanted legacies that will last long into the (fuel rods and carbon emissions, respectively.) These heirlooms are the focus of David’s book Footprints, in which he writes wonderfully about what we are leaving behind for future generations.

David teaches literature at Edinburgh University, so brings a literary perspective on time that I simply loved, and takes his reader all over the world in a quest to find “future fossils”.

By David Farrier,

Why should I read it?

1 author picked Footprints as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A profound meditation on climate change and the Anthropocene and an urgent search for the fossils-industrial, chemical, geological-that humans are leaving behind

A Times Book of the Year * A Daily Telegraph Book of the Year

What will the world look like ten thousand or ten million years from now?

In Footprints, David Farrier explores what traces we will leave for the very deep future. From long-lived materials like plastic and nuclear waste, to the 50 million kilometres of roads spanning the planet, in modern times we have created numerous objects and landscapes with the potential to endure through deep…


Book cover of Deep Time Reckoning: How Future Thinking Can Help Earth Now

Richard Fisher Why did I love this book?

Vincent is a social anthropologist who spent a number of years in Finland completing a truly fascinating piece of fieldwork: he studied the people involved in planning the spent nuclear waste depository at Onkala.

This is a huge undertaking and responsibility, requiring its architects to project their minds tens of thousands of years into the future. Through his fieldwork, Vincent drew out various broader lessons for how to think longer-term.

What’s striking about Onkala is that the people involved in the planning are simply normal Finnish people tasked with an extraordinary job. To me that shows that deep time can be accessible to everyone, and indeed this is a theme that Vincent explores himself: seeking out long-term time in everyday experience can be cathartic, he argues.

By Vincent Ialenti,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked Deep Time Reckoning as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

A guide to long-term thinking: how to envision the far future of Earth.

We live on a planet careening toward environmental collapse that will be largely brought about by our own actions. And yet we struggle to grasp the scale of the crisis, barely able to imagine the effects of climate change just ten years from now, let alone the multi-millennial timescales of Earth's past and future life span. In this book, Vincent Ialenti offers a guide for envisioning the planet's far future—to become, as he terms it, more skilled deep time reckoners. The challenge, he says, is to learn…


Book cover of The Good Ancestor: A Radical Prescription for Long-Term Thinking

Richard Fisher Why did I love this book?

The concept of the ‘good ancestor,’ originally coined by physician Jonas Salk, is the focus of Roman Krznaric’s excellent book about our relationship with future generations.

I’ve known Roman for a few years now: he spoke about long-term time on a panel I organised at the Hay Festival a few years ago, and he makes an appearance in my own book on a trip we both made to the House of Lords to watch a debate about future generation policy.

He is a crystal clear thinker and communicator, and I’ve learnt a lot from him. One of the most interesting (of many) ideas in his book is the idea that we are “colonising” the future: treating it as some distant no-man’s land where we can dump environmental degradation, malignant heirlooms, carbon emissions, and so on.

Of course, the future belongs to the people living there: our grandchildren. Roman makes a powerful case for why these future people deserve to be recognised more in the present.

By Roman Krznaric,

Why should I read it?

2 authors picked The Good Ancestor as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.

What is this book about?

'This is the book our children's children will thank us for reading' - The Edge, U2

How can we be good ancestors?

From the first seeds sown thousands of years ago, to the construction of the cities we still inhabit, to the scientific discoveries that have ensured our survival, we are the inheritors of countless gifts from the past. Today, in an age driven by the tyranny of the now, with 24/7 news, the latest tweet, and the buy-now button commanding our attention, we rarely stop to consider how our actions will affect future generations. With such frenetic short-termism at…


Explore my book 😀

Book cover of The Long View: Why We Need to Transform How the World Sees Time

What is my book about?

Humans are unique in our ability to understand time, able to comprehend the past and future like no other species. Yet we live in an era of short-termism, at the mercy of reactive politics, quarterly business targets, and 24-hour news cycles. How might we learn to take a longer view? BBC journalist Richard Fisher examines the external pressures and psychological habits that trap us in the present, and what it takes to discover a deeper temporal perspective.  

You might also like...

Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation

By Lyle Greenfield,

Book cover of Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation

Lyle Greenfield Author Of Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation

New book alert!

Why am I passionate about this?

I’ve always been fascinated by group dynamics, large and small. Why things functioned well, why they didn’t. It’s possible my ability to empathize and use humor as a consensus-builder is the reason I was elected president of a homeowners association, a music production association, and even an agricultural group. Books were not particularly involved in this fascination! But in recent years, experiencing the breakdown of civility and trust in our political and cultural discourse, I’ve taken a more analytical view of the dynamics. These books, in their very different ways, have taught me lessons about life, understanding those with different beliefs, and finding ways to connect and move forward. 

Lyle's book list on restoring your belief in human possibility

What is my book about?

We’ve all experienced the overwhelming level of political and social divisiveness in our country. This invisible “virus” of negativity is, in part, the result of the name-calling and heated rhetoric that has become commonplace among commentators and elected leaders alike. 

My book provides a clear perspective on the historical and modern-day causes of our nation's divisive state. It then proposes easy-to-understand solutions—an action plan for our elected leaders and citizens as well. Rather than a scholarly treatment of a complex topic, the book challenges us to take the obvious steps required of those living in a free democracy. And it…

Uniting the States of America: A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation

By Lyle Greenfield,

What is this book about?

Lyle Greenfield's "Uniting the States of America―A Self-Care Plan for a Wounded Nation" is a work of nonfiction and opinion. Incorporating the lessons of history and the ideas and wisdom of many, it is intended as both an educational resource and a call-to-action for citizens concerned about the politically and culturally divided state of our Union. A situation that has raised alarm for the very future of our democracy.

First, the book clearly identifies the causes of what has become a national crisis of belief in and love for our country. How the divisiveness and hostility rampant in our political…


5 book lists we think you will like!

Interested in time, life satisfaction, and climate change?

Time 10 books
Life Satisfaction 223 books
Climate Change 209 books