How we wait, why we wait, what we wait for—waiting in line is a daily indignity that we all experience, usually with a little anxiety thrown in (why is it that the other line always moves faster?!?). This smart, quirky, wide-ranging book (the perfect conversation starter) considers the surprising science and psychology—and the sheer misery—of the well-ordered line. On the way, it takes us from boot camp (where the first lesson is to teach recruits how to stand rigidly in line) to the underground bunker beneath Disneyland’s Cinderella Castle (home of the world’s most advanced, state-of-the-art queue management technologies); from the 2011 riots in London (where rioters were observed patiently taking their turns when looting shops), to the National Voluntary Wait-in-Line days in the People’s Republic of China (to help train their non-queuing populace to wait in line like Westerners in advance of the 2008 Olympics). Citing sources ranging from Harvard Business School professors to Seinfeld, the book comes back to one underlying truth: it’s not about the time you spend waiting, but how the circumstances of the wait affect your perception of time. In other words, the other line always moves faster because you’re not in it.

デイヴィッド・アンドリューズは、行列という日常の「屈辱」を、科学とユーモアを交えて鮮やかな社会学的叙事詩へと昇華させました。ディズニーの最新技術から暴動下のロンドンまでを縦断する筆致は、単なる知識の羅列を超え、秩序を求める人間の悲哀と滑稽さを浮き彫りにします。 本書の本質は「時間の知覚」にあります。なぜ隣の列が速く見えるのかという問いは、自己と世界の関わりを問う哲学的な命題へと読者を誘います。待つことの不条理を解き明かす著者の情熱的な洞察に触れれば、退屈なはずの待ち時間は、人間性の深淵を覗くエキサイティングな探求へと一変するでしょう。