I was just sent a US edition of Tom Vanderbilt's book Traffic, Why We Drive the Way we Do (and What It Says About Us), and despite having read only 40pp am completely riveted.  It's being published by Penguin here in the UK at the end of August and I would strongly recommend it to anyone who loves these sorts of information packed, smartly written works of non-fiction that make you see the everyday with fresh eyes.  It's very engaging and funny and really gets you into the psychology of traffic in ways that you probably never thought you would find interesting (and will find at times quite alarming!)

Random sample: "Surely you have had a moment when you were driving down the road and suddenly found yourself "awake at the wheel", unable to remember the last few minutes.  In a way. much of the time we spend in traffic is like that, a kind of gauzy dream state of automatic muscle movements and half-remembered images.  Traffic is an in-between time in which we are more likely to think about where we are going than where we are at the moment.  Time and space are skewed in traffic; our vision is fragmented and often unclear, and we take in and then almost immediately forget hundreds, perhaps thousands of images and impressions.  Every minute we are surrounded by a different group of people, people we will share space with but never talk to, never meet."

Or as the author writes a little later in the book, "In traffic we struggle to stay human". I have a feeling this book is going to strike a chord with many readers around the world as the book is so thought-provoking and well-researched and relevant.

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