In his book In Praise of Slowness, the award-winning journalist Carl Honore charted the growth of the Slow Movement which began in Italy with Slow Food and then progressed to other aspects of living in countries around the world. We called this book "an incisive overview of an important cultural phenomenon."

We still live in a time where people salivate over fast cars, fast food, fast service, and fast talk. Honore is back ten years later to take on "the quick-fix [which] has become the standard across the board in our fast-forward, on-demand, just-add-water culture." Trying to solve problems in a hurry, he explains, is a route to disaster. The evidence is all around us in diet fads that don't work, Americans' catastrophic addiction to prescription drugs, the repeated recall of faulty vehicles, the lack of planning in war and diplomacy, and the economic chaos that has ensued from the short-term thinking of politicians and policy makers. To meet these challenges we must slow down and invest our best efforts and resources.

Honore shows how the quick-fix approach is wired into our brains and given more credence by our propensity for tunnel vision. Equally damaging is the self-help industry and the media which relentlessly promote fixing everything by tomorrow. Honore asks us to be patient and to readjust our rhythm. He lays out 13 ingredients of the slow-fix that are being played out in a variety of arenas, including think holistic, think small, prepare, collaborate, devolve, and play. Among the accounts of individuals and institutions are the rehabilitation of prisoners in Norway and the resulting low rates of recidivism, the use of crowdsourcing in Iceland to reboot democracy, the efforts of a rock band to focus the attention of its fans on the small stuff, and the creation of a video game to help get children into the habit of doing chores at home. The latter give kids a thumbs up for making their beds, pairing socks, or unblocking the gutters. The playful nature of the game enables participants to see taking out the trash as "removing toxic waste from the kingdom."

Honore concludes that reliance on the quick-fix dies hard. But the alternatives cited in The Slow Fix bring us fresh hope that the patience, creativity, and integrity of human nature will one day make hurry obsolete as a problem-solving tool.