James Gleick, author of the best-selling National Book Award- nominated Genius and the widely acclaimed Chaos, now takes a multidimensional look at the acceleration of our lives in this time-obsessed culture. He quotes the statistic that the average American in his or her more sedentary moments spends 16 minutes a day reading books and 41 reading newspapers and magazines. How about book reviews? Well, let's not pause to consider that one — after all time is money and we must get moving.

Czech novelist Milan Kundera said: "Speed is the form of ecstasy the technological revolution has bestowed on humankind." He's right about that. Check out the cars roaring down the highway (or depicted that way in commercials), and you get the distinct impression that individuals relish moving fast. Then notice the impatient looks and the rising anger in the faces of people waiting in a doctor's office. This anxiety and impending rage is a sign of hurry sickness. Gleick hits the nail on the head in his discussion of the antsiness of those waiting for an elevator door to close. "Door dwell," as engineers call it, tends to be set at two to four seconds. But in this era of hyper-acceleration, that is an eternity for those who feel compelled to hit the DOOR CLOSE button.

We are all caught up in what novelist Nicholson Baker calls "time's cattle drive." Like a herd, we are all moving faster. With great elan, Gleick covers time-saving devices that don't measure up, the swiftness of movies and television commercials, grazers who change channels 22 a minute, all-night banks and drive-in funeral parlors, the place of email in our revved up lives, the reverence bestowed upon quick thinking over long-term perspectives, the pressure in the business world to maximize efficiency and save time, and the shrinking realm of leisure. In one of his many marvelous comments, Gleick notes: "Much of life has become a game show, our fingers poised above the buzzer. We're either the quick or the dead. To be quick it used to be enough merely to be alive, now we expect repartee and fast response times too."

One of the most lively chapters is on multitasking which has become a way of life for most Americans. Doing one thing at a time is passé. "We are multitasking connoisseurs — experts in crowding, pressing, packing and overlapping activities in our all-too-finite moments." Of course, here is where the wisdom traditions have an antidote — learning the art of single-pointed attention. Gleick also offers his own interpretation why so many more people are bored in our fast-forward society. They are manic, unable to slow down, and savor the moment. Faster is a bellwether volume of cultural criticism filled with astute and telling observations on the time-obsessed culture of the West.