Nobody really needs to read this book. It's essentially 460 pages worth of anti-SUV statistics that could have just as easily been compiled into a tri-fold brochure. But you don't get on the NY Times bestseller list by putting out brochures. You do it by cranking out books on these types of latter-day wedge issues. Now I sure ain't no cheerleader for those monstrosities that clog up the urban landscape nowadays, but I'm equally bored with the sanctimonious vitriol leveled at SUV drivers, as though driving a Corolla was grounds for sainthood or something. Thankfully, Bradsher glosses over the relative fuel inefficiency of SUVs and spends more time dwelling on how unsafe they are. He also devotes a fair amount of space to the economic conditions that caused the surge in popularity of SUVs. But this is all spectacularly dry reading. The book is really only engrossing when he explores the psychological profile that accounts for the huge increase in SUV sales: the materialistic instinct that arises from personal insecurity, along with the auto industry brainwashing people into thinking they need a fucking Excursion to drive 20 freeway miles to work each day. So unless you anticipate having a verbal showdown on the topic of SUVs in the near future and need to have some good, hard evidence in your quiver, I wouldn't bother reading it.