There may not be enough minutes in the day, but Gleick asserts that as a society we are not fazed as long as we and the world around us work at higher velocities. Caffeinated beverages have become increasingly popular as daily doses of induced speed. News clips and politician statements are shortened to mere seconds. Spectator sports, such as baseball, implement rules for the purpose of cutting the length of game play. Commercials flash past too quickly to be anything more than subliminal messages. Speed is discovered in new areas and pursued, everyone having the goal of living in the moment, or in "real time."

Gleick's novel spills over with interesting information, which testifies to the great amount of research he has done. He has gathered information from such eclectic sources as movie sets, telephone headquarters, airline control centers, the Directorate of Time, government agencies and research groups, in order to give his claims a firm foundation in fact. And although it might not be quick enough for the busy individual who is its subject, Faster is a fast read. Gleick creates a page-turner through his use of suspense. His chapters come full circle. Gleick is very good at carrying the reader through his profound arguments about time and its affect on us. His style successfully makes his abstract claims obvious and accessible in the small number of pages of each chapter. At times, however, Gleick sidetracks onto tangents, as in the chapter "The Law of Small Numbers" with its many symbols and mathematical discussions, is only weakly related to his argument. His thoughts get so muddled with heavy ideas of the science of time that he sometimes loses sight of the more interesting societal affects of speed on the individual. He also loses his reader. However, these passages are fast and few, and do not completely lack relevant material.

Faster reveals that despite all our haste we may only be running in place. Gleick wisely avoids the "Smell the roses" cliches and imparts no advice on how to save one's time in our increasingly hurried lives. In fact, he dedicates a whole chapter to exposing the contradictions present within self-help books, like 365 Ways to Save Time. Gleick asks only that we acknowledge this condition. He states that the speed at which we accomplish our multitudinous tasks has its consequences. Not only may the quality of our work suffer, but also the quality of our lives. For example, leisure is no longer existent, having been replaced by the oxymoronic "leisure activity." We are also made aware of the effect speed has on times past and present. Those times that were once viewed as speedy are today viewed as slow. We move as if there has always been a slower and will always be a Faster. Gleick, however, portends that our racing population will eventually crash into the limits of speed. In some ways, he shows we have already done this; we have learned that one can't hurry decomposition, nor a souffle, nor love. Gleick quotes the Red Queen in Lewis Carroll's Through the Looking Glass explaining to Alice that, in her world, "It takes all the running you can do to keep in the same place. Faster reveals that we are doing exactly that.

Admittedly, Faster contains loopholes of weak argument and some sweeping generalizations based on the averages calculated in the official records from which Gleick acquired much of his information. However, in general the book provides an insightful, analytical representation of today's time-ruled society. You will no doubt see yourself in the national averages and examples Gleick uses. Be warned before you read this intriguing book; the time you invest in it exceeds the mere hours it takes to read. You will recall it every time you find yourself doing three things at once or choosing whether or not to push that "door close" button.