Archive for the ‘Book News’ Category

Book officially released tomorrow, though spies in the Windy City report copies are on the street…

P.S. Apparently the interview I did with Terry Gross for Fresh Air will air today, Monday July 28th. I had a weird summer cold that day but it was still great to be interviewed by someone I’ve been listening to for years.

As I put this up a while ago, on the eve of the tour I’ll repost it as there’s been a few small changes. If I’m coming through one of your locales, please don’t hesitate to get in touch (it’s really just a media tour — no readings, but I may be back through at some point). If you’re a journalist or radio/tv producer and would like to set something up, please contact Gabrielle Brooks at Knopf.

Here’s the schedule as it stands so far… and more news to come as it develops:

Monday, July 28 and 29 NEW YORK (Book released)
Wednesday, July 30 BOSTON
Thursday, July 31 WASHINGTON, D.C.
Monday, August 4 NYC/MINNEAPOLIS
Tuesday, August 5 MINNEAPOLIS
Wednesday, August 6 CHICAGO
Thursday, August 7 TORONTO
Friday, August 8 ATLANTA
Tuesday, August 12 SEATTLE
Wednesday, August 13 SEATTLE
Thursday, August 14 SAN FRANCISCO
Friday, August 15 LOS ANGELES
Monday, August 18 LOS ANGELES

Monday, August 25 DUBLIN, IRELAND
Tuesday, August 26 LONDON, ENGLAND
Wednesday, August 27 LONDON, ENGLAND
Thursday, August 28 LONDON, ENGLAND

I’m up in Boston (hence the slow posting), home of that legendary creature, conductorus bostoniana — i.e., the “Boston driver” — a topic I’ll return to in another post. But just to note there’s a great write-up in the latest issue of Wired, by Josh McHugh (article here or after the jump). In it is discussed briefly a topic I’ll also want to return to in a later post: comparing internet traffic to vehicular traffic.
(more…)

I was just reading a nice little write-up of Traffic in O: The Oprah Magazine, and I noticed it was just adjacent to a similar plug for Joseph O’Neill’s fine novel Netherland.

The pairing may have been accidental, but I couldn’t help notice, when reading Netherland, a subtle fascination with traffic. There’s a scene at the DMV, for example, and Chuck Ramkissoon takes the narrator on a series of less than altruistic driving lessons. There’s talk of “crazed traffic diagonals” and “triangular traffic islands.”

My favorite bit, though, was this short description of the comparative physiognomy of “green men”:

“At a certain point, Chuck grabbed my arm and said, ‘Let’s cross now,’ and he trotted quickly across the avenue as a surge of traffic came roaring up. He had, I realized, waited for a moment when the pedestrian light showed the fierce red hand, and then taken his chance. Evidently he felt this gave him an edge—and it did, because it meant that, walking on down Sixth Avenue, he and I were signaled forward at every cross street by the purposeful white-glowing pedestrian whose missionary stride was plainly conceived as an example to all (and whom I cannot help contrasting with his London counterpart, a green gentleman undoubtedly rambling with his golden retriever).”

He’s right about this, Chuck is: Typically the only way for a pedestrian to not encounter a “don’t walk” sign on the next block is to cross against the light on the previous block. The lights are timed for cars, not pedestrians — even though pedestrian traffic is often much heavier in New York City.

That’s the title of an essay I’ve written, reflecting on the ideas and legacy of Hans Monderman, the famous Dutch traffic engineer (now there’s an unlikely phrase) who died earlier this year. The piece, which builds upon some material in the book, is just out in the new Wilson Quarterly.

I’m quite honored to be among Amazon’s “Significant Seven” — i.e., the Best Books of the Month.

The 40% discount now makes the book (assuming free shipping) cost less than four gallons of gas. Perfect ’staycation’ reading!

A few more early reviews have come in, including a starred review from Library Journal.

“Fascinating… could not have come at a better time.” Library Journal.

While Business Week notes, “Tom Vanderbilt uncovers a raft of counterintuitive facts about what happens when we get behind the wheel, and why.”

And while we’re indulging in this orgy of self-promotion, let’s not forget the original good words that will adorn the book back’s jacket:

“Tom Vanderbilt is one of our best and most interesting writers, with an extraordinary knack for looking at everyday life and explaining, in wonderful and entertaining detail, how it really works. That’s never been more true than with Traffic, where he takes a subject that we all deal with (and worry about), and lets us see it through new eyes. In the process, he helps us understand better not just the highway, but the world. It doesn’t matter whether you drive or take the bus–you’re going to want to read this book.”
–James Surowiecki, author of The Wisdom of Crowds

“A great, deep, multidisciplinary investigation of the dynamics and the psychology of traffic jams. It is fun to read. Anyone who spends more than 19 minutes a day in traffic should read this book.”
–Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author The Black Swan

“Fascinating, illuminating, and endlessly entertaining as well. Vanderbilt shows how a sophisticated understanding of human behavior can illuminate one of the modern world’s most basic and most mysterious endeavors. You’ll learn a lot; and the life you save may be your own.”
–Cass R. Sunstein, coauthor of Nudge: Improving Decisions About Health, Wealth, and Happiness

“Everyone who drives–and many people who don’t–should read this book. It is a psychology book, a popular science book, and a how-to-save-your-life manual, all rolled into one. I found it gripping and fascinating from the very beginning to the very end.”
–Tyler Cowen, author of Discover Your Inner Economist

I’ll be hitting the road next month, and if I’m coming through one of your locales, please don’t hesitate to get in touch. If you’re a journalist or radio/tv producer and would like to set something up, please contact Gabrielle Brooks at Knopf.

Here’s the schedule as it stands so far:

Monday, July 28 and 29 NEW YORK

Wednesday, July 30 BOSTON

Thursday, July 31 WASHINGTON, D.C.

Friday, August 1 PHILADELPHIA

Monday, August 4 MINNEAPOLIS

Tuesday, August 5 MINNEAPOLIS

Wednesday, August 6 CHICAGO

Thursday, August 7 TORONTO

Friday, August 8 ATLANTA

Tuesday, August 12 SEATTLE

Wednesday, August 13 SEATTLE

Thursday, August 14 SAN FRANCISCO

Friday, August 15 LOS ANGELES

August 24th through Thursday, August 28th: The United Kingdom.

Before attending the Book Expo in Los Angeles the weekend before last, where among other things, I had a great podcast chat with Amazon’s Tom Nissley and a fabulous Knopf dinner at Suzanne Goin’s Lucques, I had written a piece for Publishers Weekly on “traffic” both inside and out of the Convention Center. It was mostly speculative, in the sense I actually hadn’t been to BookExpo in a while.

But the experience of actually navigating the convention brought up a few more things vis a vis what we normally think of when we think of traffic; namely, the flow of people through cities.
(more…)

The excellent Freakonomics blog has posted a Q&A about the book, with the good questions provided by Annika Mengisen.

The comments, as per usual on the Internet, range from intelligent discourse to reactionary fomenting.

Some early reviews of the book have trickled in …

Publishers Weekly calls it “Fresh and timely” and writes: “Vanderbilt investigates how human nature has shaped traffic, and vice versa, finally answering drivers’ most familiar and frustrating questions.”

Kirkus, meanwhile, opines that it is “Fluently written and oddly entertaining, full of points to ponder while stuck at the on-ramp meter or an endless red light.”

And Booklist calls it “informative and engaging,” and says “this may be the most insightful and comprehensive study ever done of driving behavior and how it reveals truths about the types of people we are.”

Why does the other lane always seem to be moving faster? When two lanes are forced to merge into one, is it better for you — and everyone else — to merge early, or merge late? Are roundabouts really safer than conventional intersections? Is the road a microcosm of society or an autonomous republic that functions according to its own set of rules? Why does traffic behave differently in differently places? Are large trucks the highway menace they seem? Do men and women actually act differently on the road?

These are the sorts of questions I set out to answer, nearly three years ago, when I first started the book that would become: “Traffic: Why We Drive the Way We Do (and What It Says About Us). I wanted to take an omnipresent everyday activity and environment, one so familiar we seem to stop asking questions of it, and peer into the dynamics of what was really happening, and why. In the process of research, which took me from my own neighborhood streets to the world’s most advanced driving simulator in Iowa, from the traffic bunkers of L.A. to the chaotic, organic motorbike flow of Hanoi, from Italy’s autostrada to Germany’s autobahn, I found many of my own preconceptions upended, my longstanding rules of thumb shattered.

The book will be released by Alfred A. Knopf on July 29, 2008, and shortly after that by Penguin in the U.K., and then in a number of other countries and languages shortly after that. It was difficult to actually finish because each day seemed to bring some thought, some new finding that I thought deserved discussion.

That’s why I’m adding to the bustling traffic of the internet with yet another forum. There were too many things still to say, too many arguments unresolved, too many ongoing developments to report, too many curiosities that could not be contained within the already capacious confines of the book.

Because the internet thrives on traffic, all the good websites with “traffic” in the title were taken. So, for the purposes of this blog, I’ve decided to go with the vaguely Trollope-ish “How We Drive,” a phrase that I hope encompasses both the actual process of driving and the larger societal questions of our automobile-driven lives. I hope you enjoy the ride…