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Product Description
Review
"Well written and enjoyable. . . . A book that demands your attention." --The Christian Science Monitor
"Nimble, smart, often funny, and--best of all--fast." --The New York Times Book Review
Book Description
Most of us suffer some degree of "hurry sickness." a malady that has launched us into the "epoch of the nanosecond," a need-everything-yesterday sphere dominated by cell phones, computers, faxes, and remote controls. Yet for all the hours, minutes, and even seconds being saved, we're still filling our days to the point that we have no time for such basic human activities as eating, sex, and relating to our families. Written with fresh insight and thorough research, Faster is a wise and witty look at a harried world not likely to slow down anytime soon.
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Most helpful customer reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
entertaining collection of observations,
By
This review is from: Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything (Paperback)
Jam-packed with information and covering subjects that range from Richard Feynman's observations of theoretical physics to the rise of MTV, this book reads, well, fastly. I got a kick out of it and learned a lot. It has a very large number of chapters which are not always that closely tied together, but maybe an obvious point is that that is the intent of the author, to make the book read like modern Western society, with information flying at you from all directions. If so, that may make the book a little harder to get in to and less conventional in style, but it also makes it more original, and in a sense, more logical because it is consistent with its own theme. Author of Adjust Your Brain: A Practical Theory for Maximizing Mental Health.
3.0 out of 5 stars
Breezy. Fast. And bright yellow.,
By hungryghost (London) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything (Paperback)
Aha! We knew it all along! Life, work, off-time - 'things' - just seem a hell of a lot faster these days. Those of us with typical 21st century urban, technology led lifestyles are all too familiar with the constant background noise of accelerated living. In Faster, Gleick amasses a mixed bag of armchair philosophy, anecdotal antics and random research to document our strangely mercurial existence.And a mixed bag it is indeed. The book shines best when Gleick exposes in detail those 'hidden' time-saving procedures that underpin our everyday lives. The passage on telephone directory enquiries, where we discover the drive to shave mere milliseconds from customer's inbound requests, is a real eye-opener. As is the revelation that time-saving procedures have even encroached on the age old traditions of the leisurely 9-inning baseball game. And who would have thought that a restaurant in Tokyo now offers an all-you-can-eat service charging customers by the minute? Dining by time-clock? Well, thanks, but no thanks. Still, I would have liked to have seen these sketches gather momentum and lead to a more cogent line of thought. Instead, they simply drift away and what remains is an assortment of charming but ultimately unsubstantial tales. Nothing more, nothing less. Readers looking for a more protracted cultural analysis, a deeper probe into psychological aetiology, or a broader review of our collective existential malaise will likely be disappointed. So, It's hardly a radical premise. And there's no real conclusion to speak of; no pulling together of the various threads that weave through this work. But as a collection of interesting hors d'oeuvres and after-dinner anecdotes, this is an entertaining enough read which - thankfully - requires a not considerable investment of time nor energy. Bloody good job too, as I had to cook supper and pay my gas bill online at the same time.
5.0 out of 5 stars
You have to make time to read this.,
By "cpopham2004" (Ipplepen, UK) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything (Paperback)
How can we fit all the things we need to do into the 24 hours of each day and still leave time for the things we want to do, and have to do? The truth is we just can't and James Gleick dissects our typical day in a humorous and informative way to demonstrate how we can't possibly have time to read his book. This is much, much more approachable than 'Chaos' and you should 'make time' to give this your full attention and read it from cover to cover.
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