Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything
    Unavailable
    Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything
    Unavailable
    Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything
    Audiobook (abridged)5 hours

    Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything

    Published by Penguin Random House Audio

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    From the bestselling, National Book Award-nominated author of Genius and Chaos, a bracing new work about the accelerating pace of change in today's world.

    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.


    From the Trade Paperback edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateFeb 1, 2011
    ISBN9780307915085
    Unavailable
    Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything

    Related to Faster

    Related audiobooks

    Psychology For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Every Grain of Sand

      Nov 25, 2022

      Every Grain of Sand
      12 min read

    • Article

      Patrick‘s Pages

      Aug 27, 2021

      Patrick‘s Pages
      5 min read

    • Article

      Pay Attention! Think!

      Mar 17, 2021

      Viktor Frankl penned this line after being released from Nazi concentration camps where he’d endured three years of hard labour. Some of you might know he wrote the book Man’s Search for Meaning in just nine days after being released. He argued that

      7 min read

    • Article

      Demoting Our Devices

      Mar 1, 2022

      Demoting Our Devices
      7 min read

    • Article

      Physicist Michio Kaku: ‘We Could Unravel The Secrets Of The Universe’

      Apr 22, 2023

      Have you been feeling anxious about technology lately? If so, you’re in good company. The United Nations has urged all governments to implement a set of rules designed to rein in artificial intelligence. An open letter, signed by such luminaries as Y

      7 min read

    • Article

      Postcards From The Future

      Sep 29, 2020

      Postcards From The Future
      18 min read

    • Article

      What We Know Now

      Jul 16, 2023

      KNOWING WHAT WE KNOW, by Simon Winchester (William Collins, $37.99) Sometimes, a great idea is all you need. Other times, even the best of ideas needs a little help. In the 1890s, Belgian duo Paul Otlet and Henri La Fontaine had what must have seemed

      3 min read

    • Article

      People In Power ‘Don’t Care’ About Lonely Millions Not Online

      May 5, 2021

      I’ve got bad news for Hugh Jenkins, who in Issue 604 asked us not to forget the “lonely millions” who aren’t connected to the web. Before I deliver this news, I should say that I wholeheartedly agree with him. There are simply too many people living

      1 min read

    • Article

      Big Click Energy

      Mar 1, 2022

      Big Click Energy
      4 min read

    • Article

      San Francisco Is Smarter Than You Are: The city is a big brain that can solve big problems.

      Oct 23, 2014

      Its achievements are undeniable. Having hosted what some historians call the greatest creation of wealth in human history,1 the San Francisco Bay Area had the fastest growth rate in the United States in 2012,2 the highest per-capita gross domestic pr

      6 min read

    • Article

      Duncan Bell Is On Lockdown

      Jun 1, 2020

      So it’s been a bit of a weird few months. I know that because at the last count, I have had 12,037 emails that begin “Dear [insert name] I hope you and your loved ones are safe and well during this crazy time.” Then, pleasantries having been dispense

      3 min read

    • Article

      “This Was Weaponised Technobabble. And They Were Bringing Out The Big Guns”

      Dec 7, 2023

      I’m not claiming that I manifested the glitch in the Air Traffic Control system at the end of the summer because I’m so deeply attuned to the natural and digital world that my worries actualised as a blip on the radar. But I might have done. Fortune,

      6 min read

    • Article

      What’s This Doing To My Brain?

      Mar 27, 2018

      A FRIEND OF THE WRITER Kim Stolz once jumped onto subway tracks to retrieve a dropped iPhone. Telling the story in Unfriending My Ex and Other Things I’ll Never Do, Stolz reports being horrified by the risk—yet adds, “If this same friend dropped her

      7 min read

    • Article

      Totally Wired?

      Sep 8, 2019

      Totally Wired?
      6 min read

    • Article

      Techdaddy Doesn’t Know Best

      Jul 29, 2018

      Techdaddy Doesn’t Know Best
      12 min read

    • Article

      FROM BITS 01 TO QuBITS

      Oct 1, 2021

      FROM BITS 01 TO QuBITS
      4 min read

    • Article

      Ideas And Industries For The Next 10 Years

      Oct 1, 2021

      Renowned New York-based futurist Faith Popcorn, who famously coined the word “cocooning” in 1981 and got most of her predictions right, explores the decade ahead with her 10 “seismic shifts”. “Unthinkable. Apocalyptic. End of days,” says Popcorn. “Th

      7 min read

    • Article

      From The Editor

      Oct 10, 2018

      I was walking to the bus stop the other day when an elegant elderly woman seated on a bench asked me when a nearby shop would open. I didn’t have a clue, so I did what someone in possession of a smartphone does when they encounter an unknown — I Goog

      2 min read

    Reviews for Faster

    3.5/5

    198 ratings11 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 5/5
      Funny. Funny. Funny. From the moment Gleick started talking about fast-working medication for a yeast infection (because only slackers have time for one of those) I knew I would be in for a fun ride. He may go on and on about a topic (the impatience one feels one when the elevator doors do not close fast enough, for example) but his points are valid. It's as if he is holding up a huge mirror and asking us to really look at how we behave when impatience or boredom sets in. Exactly how long does it take before YOU push the "door close" button in an elevator? It's an interesting test.And when Gleick says "the acceleration of just about everything" he means everything.A cool element to Faster! is that each chapter is independent of each other and therefore do not need to be read in order. But, something to be aware of - the subject material is a little dated. If he thinks the conveniences of microwaves, television remote controls and synchronized watches are indications of our need-it-now society,what does he now think of what the 21st century has been up to with our texting, smart phones, Twitter accounts and 65 mph toll booths (because who needs to stop driving incessantly on those long road trips?). He mentions computer watches (a la Dick Tracy). Funny how Apple just released their version this past year. Gleick moves on to talk about computer chips embedded in the human body, and why not? We are already comfortable with metal piercing our bodies in the oh so most interesting of places. Why not a computer chip? Gleick brings up photography and the need to see our pictures within the hour. How about the ability to take a picture and share it with the world within seconds ala Instagram and FB? There are so many examples of our world getting faster. What about the need for speed for athletic competition? Doping. Amphetamines. And speaking of drugs, what's that saying about liquor being quicker? It was interesting to think of hard liquor coming about because wine was too slow for the desired reaction to consumption. The list goes on. This was a great eye-opening read & I would love to know what Gleick would say about our need for speed these days.
    • 2/5
      About how everything goes faster and faster. I found the book disappointing. Some people's obsession with having accurate watches is different from being in a hurry. Gleick criticizes value of time calculations, but what is the alternative when evaluating the costs of seatbelts, road safety, etc? He validly criticzes a confusion between saving time and doing more on the part of other authors. Even though the benefits of the accelaration is mentioned at times, they should have figured more prominently. E.g. many of us wants to to more.
    • 3/5
      James Gleick considers our modern obsession with time, with subdividing the hours and minutes into smaller and smaller pieces, with cramming as much as possible into every moment, with saving time and spending time. Which is a potentially very interesting subject, but I found this book kind of disappointing. It's jumpy and unfocused, flitting around from topic to topic in a rather superficial way. Possibly this is Gleick attempting to capture the nature of his subject material by echoing it in his writing style, but whatever the motivation, I found the result unsatisfying and often rather tiring. He also, frankly, leaves me with the impression that he cares more about sounding clever and zippy than he does about conveying information or making any kind of coherent point. Oddly enough, I think the most interesting thing about this volume is in the way that it's dated -- it was originally published in 1999. Some of the social and technological topics it touches on just seem rather quaint now, but it's surprising how often I had the feeling that I was getting a glimpse back at the early days of many trends that have become fundamental parts of our current Internet Age, with all that that's meant for the acceleration of our society and our lives.
    • 4/5
      A decent read. A few conspicuous anachronisms really dated the writing. As far as I'm concerned James Gleick could write about the mating habits of obscure Amazonian birds and it'd still be worth the effort. The man can write.
    • 4/5
      Food for thought. i've really enjoyed all of his books that I've read.
    • 4/5
      Faster is a wonderful romp through the ever more complicated and accelerated lives of “modern” man. The book is packed full of interesting tidbits of information, statistics, and stories about how technology is helping to speed up the lives of everyone today—for better or for worse.I really enjoyed this book. The pace is quick which means that you don’t really ever want to stop reading it. I’m a sucker for trivia and statistics about everyday life and technology and this one is full of it.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      A collection of fascinating anecdotes that tries to mirror its subject matter by delivering itself in short bursts. It is not clear what it all adds up to, but as you read it the time will fly.
    • 4/5
      As befits a book about peoples' increasingly shortening attention span, 'Faster's chapters are short and zippy. This makes it an easy book to read, in contrast, say, to the author's latest work, 'The Information', which is much denser. And many of the chapters deal with relatively lightweight subjects such as MTV and time management self-help books.But there are plenty of interesting and valuable insights
    • 3/5
      I first encountered this as an audio book. When I saw that a book subtitled "the acceleration of just about everything" was being offered in an abridged version that you could listen to while doing something else... and read by the author, no less, I just had to have it. After listening to it I bought a copy and re-read it (or read it for the first time). Yes, like other books by Gleick it is a popular account. But it's very well told, and I've given copies to friends who would not usually read non-fiction.
    • 3/5
      A book that feels as rushed as its subject matter. An interesting topic, but a more structured and analytical approach would have shed more insight. Too often (particularly in the second half) the book degenerated into simply describing some aspect or another of modern, fast-paced living.
    • 1/5
      Pure pontification. Gleick admitted as much when I saw him speak on his tour for this book: "I guess there isn't really a central idea that I'm arguing for. My hope is that you'll read it and at the end think, 'Oh, I get it.'"