Faster

Rating:
Summary: A newyorker's critique of speed?
Review: Well researched and entertaining. Gleick argues convincingly that it is our constant demand for ever faster experiences, in spite of our grumbling and apparent nostalgia of slower times, that is responsible for the acceleration of the world. He is unfairly critical though of alternatives, perhaps because as a newyorker and a journalist he thrives in frantic environments. It is not enough to point at the "information glut" generated by the slow food movement, for example, to disqualify it.

Rating:
Summary: Time Waster
Review: I did read it all, cover to cover in about 3 hours, so it kept my attention, but when I was done, I realized I had just wasted three hours. There are lots of mildly interesting facts of no consequence whatsoever. There is no thesis - a big disappointment. I was looking for some kind of analysis or value judgment about whether the significant opportunities available by living faster are worth the sacrifice of thoughtfulness. Also, his phenomenology is weak. We don't press the "door closed" button because we can't stand to wait 5 more seconds, we do it because we resent being held against our will by the machine, and by the implied economic machine that provided it. We punch out of impotent frustration more than impatience. Gleick doesn't dig deeply into anything - a demonstration of the price you pay for going faster.

Rating:
Summary: Tempus Fugit
Review: Our modern (western) lives seem to run in a frantic pace. We seem to be obsessed by "saving" time, but just what is "saving" time? Doing tasks more quickly and leaving more free, idle, time, or rather filling up all your idle time with tasks? Does saving time mean fitting more tasks into your schedule, or having to complete less tasks?

Gleick's "Faster" is all about Time in modern society. About how we spend it (did you know that the average American spends on avarage as much time on government beaurocracy as he or she does on having sex?), about how we try to save it (did you know that a dishwasher only saves you one minute daily on average?), and how our perception of time has changed over the years; one striking example of that last point is how two centuries ago 2000 men were killed in battle, 2 weeks after a peace treaty had been signed, because the information didn't cross the Atlantic quickly enough. It's hard to imagine this today, with CNN and Al-Jazeera broadcasting wars live, and most of us living on a single, coordinated, clock. 200 years ago, if Einstein had invented his Special Theory of Relativity, he would have found it easier than now to explain to people about how two events can influence one another only if information can reach fast enough from one event to the other...

In the many short chapters of this book, Glieck gives numerous examples (some interesting and amusing, but a minority are not very interesting) on what we do to "save time" and increase pace in airline schedules, TV commercials, elevators, household chores, and shows how some of these bring greater efficiency, while others simply cause an arms race of increasing pace of life, from which nobody really benefits.

Rating:
Summary: Multi-tasking as I write
Review: I love listening to music or to the radio as I write. Is this the multi-tasking that Mr Gleick writes about in this book? But to me it is just maximising my pleasure rather than an active pursuit of greater use of limited time. Of course, I recognise that I can live only my own life and it is difficult to tell if my thinking patterns are distinctly different - faster - than the thinking patterns of my ancestors. Perhaps it is so - we may have been inculcated with faster thought patterns and processes, and they are now second nature. But my major complaint about this book is that I'm not really convinced by the argument. There is a wonderful passage in a novel by Robert Silverberg ('Dying Inside') in which the mind of a peasant farmer is invaded by a youth learning about his 'talent' of mind reading - which is rather uncontrollable at the start. When the young man enters the farmer's mind, quite without expectation (or rather, with an expectation of a very limited mind and intellect) he discovers quite unexpectedly a radiant world of empathy with nature and the cosmos in which we are all embedded. Somehow this view of thinking impresses me far more than the idea that early people were just SLOW, which is what Mr Gleick appears to be suggesting (or at least that we are fast and getting faster). My suspicion is that all people in all times have filled their minds but with different things. If we are faster in thinking, then we must have sacrificed something in achieving this. I think I would prefer that cosmic identification to blind multi-tasking just on the off-chance that the person on talk-back radio I'm listening to will really have a new perspective on the topic being discussed.

There are so many short chapters in this book that I suspect it was designed in short grabs just like modern news stories. I guess by now you realise that this isn't really my style at all. I am far happier listening to a Brahms symphony - even one by Mahler or Bruckner - rather than a short pop song. But then again, I do find Wagner long-winded and seriously in need of editing, and I do have a place for short pieces too - in fact, Mozart's 'Ave Verum Corpus' is my all-time favourite piece of music.

Rating:
Summary: Good but not great
Review: I think that Chaos is the better book. Short, choppy chapters make the book feel like a non-cohesive whole (probably the point but very annoying). I like Gleick's style and you won't be disappointed if you've read his other books; there's some nicely researched anecdotes and stories. Ironically, if you've got some free time there are worse things to do than read it but afterwards you'll probably feel like you've wasted the time.

Rating:
Summary: One of the best books I've ever read
Review: That may be a bit of an exaggeration, but this book makes you so aware of how time is used to sell everything. America is obsessed with time, after reading this book I began to see its influence everywhere. I loved the concept that there is a negative correlation between free time and success. I makes you realize the folly of it all. After reading this book, when you see people who are running around, on their cell phones, trying of organize and multi-task their lives (you may be one of them) you'll smile a bit. They're places where doing things faster is better (computers for example), but for many things there comes a point where faster is not better, or cheaper, or anything other than faster. It makes you think, actually if you stop what your doing, clear your head, and think about how time has influenced your life, then this book has achieved its purpose (I think, but then again I don't have a cell phone, and I rarely multi-task so what do I know). No pun intended, but the book is a fast read. The style is engaging and the material is just great. I really liked Choas (a previous book by James Gleick), but this is the his best book. I would recommend this to everybody. It won't change your life, but it will shift your perception a little.

Rating:
Summary: Got a Short Attention Span?
Review: If so, don't read this book. No wait, on second thought you probably should *force* yourself to read this book. It would likely do you some good. While definitely dry in spots, Faster makes several important assertions about life in the modern age and the effects it can have on us.

Looking for reasons why the people around you seem so spacey and disconnected at times? Read this book...

Seeking an answer to the question "Why do I have less and less time every year, despite a proliferation of "time-saving" devices in my life?" Read this book....

Want to understand why there is so much angst and aggression on the highways, city sidewalks and aircraft cabins of the world? Read this book....

I'm not telling you Gleick is a master pyschologist, but I am telling you he has some very interesting observations to make - observations that should be summarized on the editorial page of every newspaper in America so they can be discussed at large. Some of the insights made may not be very popular with the jet-set, but the truth hurts sometimes.

This a good book when all is said and done. If you have the attention span of a chipmunk on No-Doze, you won't like it. Otherwise give it a shot....

Rating:
Summary: Somewhere in-between
Review: James Gleick's new book, "Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything," discusses many of the shortcomings and consequences of living in society pre-occupied with speed and, accordingly, how everything in our own lives - from work to food to culture - is being raced-through at a mind-blowing clip. Not only are we increasingly incapable of enjoying our own lives but the line between a life "lived" and one "spent" is being blurred.

Although I enjoyed "Faster" and appreciated Gleick's prompting to consider the proper speed at which life should be lived, I could not help but also be critical of it. The average chapter-length in "Faster" is somewhere around five pages. Not surprisingly, one is escorted through the book at a spritely clip, due mostly to Gleick's zeal and his technicque to state and re-state his same harrangue in every (and, sometimes, even in the same) chapter. Wording his argument differently by only substituting one or two words.

While managing to comment on how just about every element of Western society during the later-20th century has 'sped-up' without ever reflecting on the evolution of our increasingly-technological culture, Gleick short-shrifts his readers -- making them believe that a pause and a deep breath once or twice in the day (which was allotted to your ancestors in their idyllic worlds, don't you know) is better than the alternative in which you live, where you rush through your life at break-neck speed where you accomplish nothing. Of course, Gleick fails to mention the unbearable, sixteen-hour work-days that persons living in this country endured prior to modern labor laws and, accordingly, their certain lack of 'free time.' Nor does he ever mention that, due to more crude technologies (by today's standards), certain events just took a long time even though individuals living during those times did think that they had sped-up their lives considerably.

Although his observations are credible, his debate is unfulfilling and, all to often, one-sided. I do not necessarily disagree with Gleick's take on our modern times, however, I do not think that he has provided a worthy argument against them.

Rating:
Summary: Skip it, unless you want to break your clock habit.
Review: This book is fairly fluffy, however, it compelled me to stop wearing a watch. I would recommend maybe checking it out at the library if you can't find anything better, but it's not worth purchasing and storing on your bookshelf. It's an appropriate poolside read.

Rating:
Summary: One Long Editorial
Review: I bought this because I really enjoyed James Gleick's "Chaos". This however was a *MAJOR* dissapointment. It is one long 300 page editorial complaining about the pace of life in our times. The last two chapters are a meandering philosophical essay on..... well actual I'm not sure. It did not make much sense. An interesting book if you want to read about *how* the pace of life has changed, but not very informative.