James Gleick

As science cuts up time into nanoseconds and Olympic swimmers shave their bodies to gain the precious hundredth of a second that can be the difference between winning and losing, we feel that we have to shove more events, thoughts, and bits into ever-narrowing slices of time. In his new book, “Faster,”[Random Audio] James Gleick examines and pokes fun at the myriad ways — from business-cycle time to multitasking to quick-playback buttons on answering machines to the accelerating pace of images on our computer and television screens — in which we all keep trying to stretch the mere 1,440 minutes that make up each day.

“We’re not just talking sound bites here. “Faster” reverberates with huge, weighty questions, such as whether we’re doomed to run up against a biological speed limit set by our sluggish old carbon-based bodies and brains.” – New York Times