Saturday, November 15, 2014

A Deadly Wandering: A Tale of Tragedy and Redemption in the Age of Attention

Guilt. Accidents happen. During an early morning commute in 2006, two rocket scientists in Utah were killed in an auto accident caused by college student Reggie Shaw who was texting while driving. Matt Richtel presents the full story in a finely written book titled, A Deadly Wandering: A Tale of Tragedy and Redemption in the Age of Attention. I expected that the story warranted a brief magazine article, but not a full book, so I thought I’d turn a few pages and set the book aside. Instead, Richtel’s fine writing about the case and about brain science drew me in. Richtel presents each character in this story with great detail, so we come to understand the motivations behind each person’s behavior. The brain science is presented with clarity for general readers to understand and appreciate. Reggie’s guilt, as described by Richtel, matches the descriptions by our finest fiction writers, and the redemption as it happened goes beyond what readers would willingly believe in fiction. The result is a finely written book, packed with a message for all of us: even great drivers are distracted, and all it takes for lives to change forever is inattention during the wrong few seconds. Rating: Five-star (I love it) Click here to purchase A Deadly Wandering from amazon.com.

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