So much has already been said about A DEADLY WANDERING, especially since Matt Richtel won a Pulitzer Prize for this book, I hesitate to repeat. But I will say this: if you talk on your cell phone or text while you drive, even if you use a hands-free device, you may not want to finish reading A DEADLY WANDERING because you won’t like what it says. Richtel would say that you are in denial. If you don’t talk on your cell phone or text while you drive, you know people who do, and this book will absorb you. Maybe you will want to highlight lines throughout the book.

I am one of those people who does not use my cell phone while I drive, and I don’t understand how this could be controversial. But Richtel tells the true story of Reggie Shaw, who, at first, proclaimed that he was not guilty of causing the deaths of two people even though he had been texting while he was driving. How could there be any question that he was distracted? And why do people insist that they can multitask while they drive?

Richtel proposes that some people are that addicted to their cell phones. And he backs it up with scientific proof.

But A DEADLY WANDERING does not read like a science book. The style of this book reminds me very much of Jon Krakauer's books. Here Richtel tells personal stories, some of people directly connected to Reggie’s story, others of the scientists who study the issues Reggie’s story brings up.

Everyone should read this.