This is an excellent book, fluidly-written. Like driving a car, the storyline begins gradually, but Falconer accelerates and really hits his stride with the chapters on Route 66 and beyond. I am definitely a "car as appliance" person and Falconer's book struck many chords with my own conflicted relationship with the car. I just completed a trip on Canada's fantastic sub-Arctic and Arctic "Dempster Highway", made possible with the car. Returning to Vancouver, however, reminded me of “car creep”; the increasingly infestation of more cars in too many urban areas. “Drive” challenges much of the thinking in the development of cities and suggests many alternatives to auto-centric development and behaviour. It also made me want to use my car less in the city. I suspect that among the goals of this book were to stimulate thought and change behaviour. At least for this reader, and I am sure many more, it was mission accomplished!

“Drive” is important and timely, since the author tackles a range of crucial issues concerning the place of the car in our culture, including its environmental and social impact. But also, those interested in literature, music and pop culture will enjoy the way the author synthesizes material from these diverse fields. I particularly liked the way the weighty, factual material is based on sound research, but is presented in a user-friendly way that will appeal to all audiences. A great summer read, but also, come September, all libraries should have “Drive” in their collections.

This is a fun book about a serious topic. Falconer encourages readers to buckle up and take in the sights (he even lists his best "car songs," which would surely lead to front-seat squabbles).

It's written in an accessible, breezy style, giving the reader more than enough time to check out the scenery as the topics roll by: sex, music, literature, film, brand loyalty, safety, pop culture, racing, city planning, the freedom of the road, road rage and the entrapment of our car culture.

For car lovers, there's lots of torque, tail fins, and transmissions. And there's plenty here for urban planners, public transportation types, road trip buffs, and even car loathers.

Falconer presents the cases but casts no judgment. It's up to the reader to decide who's partially right and who's kind of wrong.

This is an excellent, 'state of the car union' look at the automobile's profound and often negative impact on western society and scarily, what that might presage for burgeoning car markets like China and India. Under the guise of a road trip Falconer undertakes from Toronto to the US west coast, he examines design, social economic factors, technology, weird car fanatics and the ways in which North American governments in particular facilitated the emergence of car culture and car dependent suburbia in the 20th century. Now that an apparently endless oil crisis is upon us and even more importantly, with growing awareness of global warning, Falconer rightly suggests that we have to re-think transportation, urban design and our perilous dependence on burning noxious fossil fuels. Falconer's prose is economical, witty and at points, even conversational: this is a fine and cagey ruse to engage the reader in what is really a deeply serious issue. I love reportage by engaged and smart journalists like Krakauer and Sebastian Junger and Falconer's Drive fits very comfortably in that honourable tradition.