DriveThru Dreams, Adam Chandler
DriveThru Dreams, Adam Chandler
List: $19.99 | Sale: $13.99
Club: $9.99

Drive-Thru Dreams
A Journey Through the Heart of America's Fast-Food Kingdom

Author: Adam Chandler

Narrator: Adam Chandler

Unabridged: 6 hr 6 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 06/25/2019


Synopsis

"Adam Chandler delivers his tribute to fast food with affection, zeal, and some humor... Mostly an enthusiast, he narrates his burger-infused stories energetically and persuasively." — AudioFile

This program is read by the author.

Most any honest person can own up to harboring at least one fast-food guilty pleasure. In Drive-Thru Dreams: A Journey Through the Heart of America's Fast-Food Kingdom, Adam Chandler explores the inseparable link between fast food and American life for the past century. The dark underbelly of the industry’s largest players has long been scrutinized and gutted, characterized as impersonal, greedy, corporate, and worse. But, in unexpected ways, fast food is also deeply personal and emblematic of a larger than life image of America.

With wit and nuance, Chandler reveals the complexities of this industry through heartfelt anecdotes and fascinating trivia as well as interviews with fans, executives, and workers. He traces the industry from its roots in Wichita, where White Castle became the first fast food chain in 1921 and successfully branded the hamburger as the official all-American meal, to a teenager's 2017 plea for a year’s supply of Wendy’s chicken nuggets, which united the internet to generate the most viral tweet of all time.

Drive-Thru Dreams by Adam Chandler tells an intimate and contemporary story of America—its humble beginning, its innovations and failures, its international charisma, and its regional identities—through its beloved roadside fare.

Praise for Drive-Thru Dreams:

"This fun, argumentative, and frequently surprising pop history of American fast food will thrill and educate food lovers of all speeds."—Publishers Weekly

"On the page, terrific writers know how to have their cake (or their Big Mac) and eat it, too. Adam Chandler is such a writer, and Drive-Thru Dreams, his account of the wild and inalienable wonderland of American fast food, gives us not just insight and history but a pleasure that is downright gustatory."—Vijay Seshadri, Pulitzer Prize winning author of 3 Sections

About Adam Chandler

ADAM CHANDLER is a writer based in Brooklyn. A former staff writer at The Atlantic, his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Texas Monthly, New York Magazine, Slate, Esquire, and elsewhere.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Rory on July 22, 2019

If Adam Chandler had gotten out of his own way and let his obvious research take hold of Drive-Thru Dreams, it would have made for a far more interesting examination of an important part of American social and industrial history. As it happens, you have to slog through Chandler being oh-so-pleased w......more

Goodreads review by Carin on May 18, 2020

So is everyone eating only drive-through and take-out right now? Good. Is the world outside making you crave comfort food? Me too. Isn't the Spicy Chicken Sandwich from Wendy's the best fast food item out there? You're wrong, yes it is. So everyone I know claims to spurn fast food and only eat organi......more

Goodreads review by Fabulous Book Fiend on September 13, 2020

This was so interesting. I did the audio and it was well-narrated. I learned a lot about some of the chains I have visited and added a ton of chains to the list to go and check out now I know more about them.........more

Goodreads review by Sahara on February 26, 2023

Didn't talk about the ins and outs of In-N-Out so if anyone wants a research paper on that one just let me know.......more

Goodreads review by Reza on November 15, 2023

If everybody said that United States has no culture, they must have never tried KFC's original recipe fried chicken or McDonald's Big Mac. This book brings us through the history of various Fast Food brands in America and their impacts on both America and the World. From the humble beginning of Whit......more


Awards

  • Amazon.com Best Books of the Year