I just picked up a fascinating little book that Joseph Pelrine mentioned during his Scrum talk at StS 2007: "A Geography of Time", by Robert Levine. It's a tour of time perceptions - both culturally (around the world), and individually (how we perceive the flow of time based on events). I'm finding a lot to like about the book - the anecdotes about the introduction of 4 standard time zones to the US in the late 19th century was worth the price all by itself - based on who I works for (Cincom, based in Cincinnati, Ohio) - I found this amusing:

Some of the most vocal objections came from the state of Ohio. The Cincinnati Commercial Gazette, whose local time was being put back 22 minutes, wrote: "The Proposition that we should put ourselves out of the way nearly half an hour from the facts so as to harmonize with an imaginary lines through Pittsburgh is simply preposterous... let the people of Cincinnati stick to the truth as it is written by the sun, moon, and stars." The Commercial Gazette, calling it a "great stupidity" to acommodate the railroad's needs, continued until 1890 to publish railroad timetables under the heading "This is Cincinnati Time. Twenty Two minutes faster than railroad time".

Heh. It's a fun little book.