Time is the datum that rules our lives. The frenetic purpose - more than we want to admit - is to save time. Think of one of those conveniences that best conveys the most elemental feeling of power over the passing seconds: the microwave oven. In your "hurry sickness" you may find yourself punching 88 seconds instead of 90 because it is faster to tap the same digit twice. Do you stand at the microwave for that minute and a half? Or is that long enough to make a quick call or run in the next room to finish paying a bill? If haste is the gas pedal for the pace of our lives, then multi-tasking is overdrive. This work dissects our unceasing daily struggle to squeeze as much as we can - but never enough - into the 1440 minutes of each day. Speed is the key strategy for saving time, and James Gleick shows us how in just about every area - from business cycle time to beeper medicine, from Federal Express to quick playback buttons on answering machines, from the pace of television to our growing need to do two things at once, speed has become the experience we all have in common - it, more than the message, is what connects us.
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Never in the history of the human race have so many had so much to do in so little time. That, anyway, is the impression most of us have of civilised life at the end of the millennium, and Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything only sharpens it. Elegantly composed and insightfully researched, Faster delivers a brisk volley of observations on how microchips, media and economics, among otherthings, have accelerated the pace of everyday experience over thecourse of the manic 20th century.
Author of the pop-science triumph,
Review
A bite sized, zippy little book is packed with myriad manifestations of the Need for Speed (DAILY EXPRESS )
A book that you can dip in and out of at will, always coming up with an intriguing fact or statistic (SUNDAY TIMES )
Gleick offers a lot of witty observation that's worth more than a few of your precious minutes (FOCUS )
It's an important portrait of an age; a learned, witty, eclectic treatise, and it might even help you to slow down. So don't hang around- go out and buy it right now. (OBSERVER ‘A highly readable dissection of our speed-obsessed age’ ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
A book that you can dip in and out of at will, always coming up with an intriguing fact or statistic (SUNDAY TIMES )
Gleick offers a lot of witty observation that's worth more than a few of your precious minutes (FOCUS )
It's an important portrait of an age; a learned, witty, eclectic treatise, and it might even help you to slow down. So don't hang around- go out and buy it right now. (OBSERVER ‘A highly readable dissection of our speed-obsessed age’ ) --This text refers to the Paperback edition.
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You are in the Directorate of Time. Read the first page
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
You are in the Directorate of Time. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
Everything is accelerating - including us. The book makes its case lucidly, but what it doesn't do is go beyond the dozens of examples to give any practical insight into how we should deal with this speed culture. That means you get to the end feeling breathless but somehow a little dissatisfied.
Gleick makes the point that so much of the "faster" culture is based on information and communication. Once a letter took weeks to get form A to B. Now we expect instant communication and info - and we get it. But that brings its own problems, which are not really explored properly here.
I found a good companion text is "Inside Information" by David Smith and John Fletcher, two marketing/research guru types who pick up somewhat where Gleick leaves off, i.e. with how we actually should be dealing with this mass of accelerated information and has some real solutions.
Main message: be careful what you wish for...
7 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
I started "faster" with great anticipation, but soon got bogged down. The entire book seemed to be nothing more than a long string of facts, with little observation and no remedy or antidote for those caught up in the hectic pace of modern life. I had hoped to find some kind of cure or antidote to the woes of living in a fast and accelerating society, but instead just found a description of it, with plenty of facts confirming what I already knew. Whilst the book was occasionally interesting, I found myself wanting it to end. I'm afraid "faster" was a bit of a disaster for me, but that's not to say others wouldn't enjoy its examination into the ingredients of our frenetic lives. I have not read Gleick before, and am now a little anxious about "Chaos" that sits on my book shelf waiting to be read. I am upbeat though as reviews suggest it is better than "faster".
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By A Customer
Format:Paperback
I used to live in a big, fast, driven American city, now I live on a tiny island in the middle of an ocean, where the pace is much more casual and the rush of modern civilization an annoying irritant on those occasions when I must travel. Gleick makes me appreciate my own (ongoing) recovery from hurry sickness and brings into focus some of the pointlessness of the breathless, rushed lifestyle.
Reminiscent of a collection of the kind of articles you'll find at the back of popular science magazines -- interesting, but light, a weekly column from James Gleick, in handy book form, obviating the weekly rush to the newstand for the latest edition.
If you've learned to kick back and enjoy a relaxing read, Faster will produce a warm self-satisfaction. If you're a hurry sickness sufferer, Faster is a useful diagnostic tool, and contains many tips on how to make your condition worse.
Few real insights, lots of amusing, sometimes alarming factoids; a smoothly-written, easily digested tour through the acceleration of your, or someone else's, life.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
4.0 out of 5 stars
entertaining collection of observations
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. Read more
Published on 2 Dec 2007 by Paul J. Fitzgerald
5.0 out of 5 stars
an astonishing account of life in the fast lane
Through his excellent journalist style James Gleick manages to create an absolute page turner. I love this book. Read more
Published on 14 April 2005 by be4con
5.0 out of 5 stars
Move over John A. McPhee, coming through
The master of important trivia, John A. McPhee “Oranges”, is about to be surpassed by James Gleick, “The Acceleration Guy. Read more
Published on 23 Oct 2002 by bernie
2.0 out of 5 stars
A Breathlessly Superficial Collection of Factoids
After hearing so many people rave above Gleick's two previous books, "Chaos" and "Genius", I was very much taken aback by this unstructured collage of factoids and tidbits. Read more
Published on 23 Aug 2002 by A. Ross
5.0 out of 5 stars
Live fast!
An amazing piece of work into the 'hurried' lifestyle of many people from developed nations. A real eye opener. Read more
Published on 2 Jan 2002
5.0 out of 5 stars
Entertaining and thought-provoking - excellent gift
A brilliant book, with plenty of original ideas. My copy has been passed around the whole family. Some of the ideas might change the way you look at things for life - I know that... Read more
Published on 23 Oct 2001
5.0 out of 5 stars
Doesn't give the answer, but it does ask the right questions
This was an excellent read. The profusion of examples built up a fascinating alternative view of how we live our lives. Read more
Published on 13 Feb 2001
4.0 out of 5 stars
As time shortens who is really gaining?
A superb insight into the chase for the millisecond and beyond. No wonder the world seems stressed at times. The cure is to set your own time. Read more
Published on 28 July 2000
5.0 out of 5 stars
Somehow I found the time to read this excellent book!
We all know the feeling, time is passing us by and we can't seem to get everything done. 'Is it Christmas again already' etc. Read more
Published on 28 Feb 2000 by simon@nomis.demon.co.uk
4.0 out of 5 stars
A book that is frightenly easy to relate to your own life
Not the easiest book that I have ever read and not exactly what I would call a light read. Yet, if like me, you absorb statistical comparisons and obscure observations, you will... Read more
Published on 21 Nov 1999 by jason@magjas.fsnet.co.uk
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