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We're just wild about hurry. Time to slow down? What's the rush? James Gleick considers society's obsession with time. Where did it come from? The Renaissance, of all places...and times. William Manchester offers a superb look at the medieval mind and the era that gave us the phrase "time is money".
Faster: The Acceleration of Just about Everything Society's in overdrive with no sign of braking. In elevators we maniacally smack the door close button in the hope of saving a handful of seconds. Politicians average 8.2 seconds to answer a question. Top industries are hiring on the basis of quick wits. A buffet in Japan charges by the minute. And the most advanced cases of "hurry sickness" punch 88 seconds on the microwave instead of 90 because it's faster to tap the same digit twice. Yet for all the hustle, and all of technology's increasing speed, there still seems to be less and less time to spare. When did we begin the "slide down this long, strange slope of milliseconds," and when, if ever, will it come to a stop? 
A World Lit Only by Fire: The Medieval Mind & the Renaissance From tales of chivalrous knights to the barbarity of trial by ordeal, no era has been a greater source of awe, horror, and wonder than the Middle Ages. In handsomely crafted prose, and with the grace and authority of his extraordinary gift for narrative history, William Manchester leads us from a civilization tottering on the brink of collapse to the grandeur of its rebirth - the dense explosion of energy that spawned some of history's greatest poets, philosophers, painters, adventurers, and reformers, as well as some of its most spectacular villains - the Renaissance.
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