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Product Description
Product Description
Synchronize your watches.
We have reached the epoch of the nanosecond. This is the heyday of speed.
If one quality defines our modern, technocratic age, it is acceleration. We are making haste. Our computers, our movies, our sex lives, our prayers -- they all run faster now than ever before. And the more we fill our lives with time-saving devices and time-saving strategies, the more rushed we feel.
In Faster, James Gleick explores nothing less than the human condition at the turn of the millennium. He shines a light of enterprising and analytical reporting -- as well as sly wit -- on the newest paradoxes of time. His journey takes us through the bunkers and trenches of a war we barely knew we were fighting: to the atomic clocks of the Directorate of Time, to the waiting rooms that focus our impatience, to the film production studios that test the high-speed limits of our perception, to the air-traffic command centers that give time pressure new meaning.
We have become a quick-reflexed, multitasking, channel-flipping, fast-forwarding species. We don't completely understand it, and we're not altogether happy about it. Faster is a mirror held up to our times -- and a mordant reminder of why some things take time.
We have reached the epoch of the nanosecond. This is the heyday of speed.
If one quality defines our modern, technocratic age, it is acceleration. We are making haste. Our computers, our movies, our sex lives, our prayers -- they all run faster now than ever before. And the more we fill our lives with time-saving devices and time-saving strategies, the more rushed we feel.
In Faster, James Gleick explores nothing less than the human condition at the turn of the millennium. He shines a light of enterprising and analytical reporting -- as well as sly wit -- on the newest paradoxes of time. His journey takes us through the bunkers and trenches of a war we barely knew we were fighting: to the atomic clocks of the Directorate of Time, to the waiting rooms that focus our impatience, to the film production studios that test the high-speed limits of our perception, to the air-traffic command centers that give time pressure new meaning.
We have become a quick-reflexed, multitasking, channel-flipping, fast-forwarding species. We don't completely understand it, and we're not altogether happy about it. Faster is a mirror held up to our times -- and a mordant reminder of why some things take time.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Hardcover
This isn't a terrible book but it left me feeling strangely empty. I'm not sure Gleick has anything more to say than we all seem to find it hard to relax. The other 299 pages seem like padding. The anecdotes are all interesting but I feel like I've heard them all before in more depth and they didn't seem to be building towards any kind of argument.
The conclusion that we should 'squander time agressively' wasn't particularly well supported by anything in the rest of the book. There is very little in the way of anecdote or evidence to support this as a route to happiness. The rare discussion of people living lives at a slower pace is in reference to previous generations and so Gleick doesn't even attempt to explore how successfully we can regain that experience if the world around is in thrall to speed. There isn't even much in the way of evidence that the increase in speed that Gleick describes is actually a bad thing.
All the praise on the dustjacket was for other books by Gleick rather than for 'Faster'.
The conclusion that we should 'squander time agressively' wasn't particularly well supported by anything in the rest of the book. There is very little in the way of anecdote or evidence to support this as a route to happiness. The rare discussion of people living lives at a slower pace is in reference to previous generations and so Gleick doesn't even attempt to explore how successfully we can regain that experience if the world around is in thrall to speed. There isn't even much in the way of evidence that the increase in speed that Gleick describes is actually a bad thing.
All the praise on the dustjacket was for other books by Gleick rather than for 'Faster'.
Format:Hardcover
The master of important trivia, John A. McPhee "Oranges" ISBN: 0374226881, is about to be surpassed by James Gleick, "The Acceleration Guy." The history of chronometry will never be the same. His insights on elevators are uplifting. He discuses the type-A personality and its misconceptions. I will not go through every subject as you do not have TIME to read this review, but I was surprised to find out what "God's speed" meant.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
64 reviews
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful
THE book for the millennium
31 Oct 1999
Format:Hardcover
The writing is cool and sometimes hilarious. The subject matter is US. Some of Gleick's readers seem flabbergasted he did not write Chaos all over again. This is different, not a science book at all, and daring to let us look again at things we thought we already knew.
The organization is brilliant too. After a while you think of a juggler, setting one ball after another in motion, until there's just a blur. But then one by one he pulls them all back in. By the end you realize what's happened before your very eyes. The chapter on the "Law of Small Numbers" alone is worth the price of the book - a gem.
Of everything I've read this year, this is the one I find myself thinking about again and again.
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Disappointing
17 Jan 2000
Format:Hardcover
Although there are interesting little tidbits, it seems like the book doesn't have much of an argument nor does it tell us anything new apart from the usual "people get too caught up in the speed of the information age"-type thing. A lot of the things he mentions are almost too obvious. The book's message seems to be simply "Maybe you should slow down". But there are no solutions offered, nor did I need to read an entire book to get this message. Buy Chaos instead if you haven't already.
36 of 41 people found the following review helpful
Not Gleick's best
4 Jan 2000
Format:Hardcover
This seems like the perfect topic for the times. The cover is catchy, the writer excels at making seemingly abstract topics topical (Chaos is superb) and he's gives great NPR. The first chapter or two, which I read before buying the book, was mesmerizing. That made my disappointment with Faster all the greater.
Gleick writes a series of great short newspaper-length stories, binds them together and calls it a book. To be sure, there is a bevy of fascinating factoids here. But Gleick never really creates a thesis and never really advances any particular argument. Some of the scenes he paints are memorable, but nothing really holds them together as a book. I tried to overcome that by reading a chapter a day on the subway and not even that worked. It's almost like he's trying to write a "fast" book that the reader can zip through. Well, in that area he succeeds, but in so doing he fails to move the book in any particular direction.
Gleick is a well-known writer with a good track record. I'm sure sales of this book have been good. But I hope that doesn't stop someone else from tackling a similar subject.
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