Hooking Up

Tom Wolfe has written a truely wonderful and insightful collection of essays about the state of America in the year 2000. Although I don't always agree with everything he says, he has a sharp eye for the social customs and status-seeking ways of the human animal. Entertaining and informative. I'd recommend it to anyone with half a brain who is interested in our culture and our times.

Tom Wolfe is one of the best writers anywhere. However, this is a jumbled mis-match. A lot of odd ramblings.....some have a little interest but most of this 6 disc set is an exercise in droning boredom. If the Tom Wolfe name was not attached to this work, this mess would have never made it to print/disc. If you were expecting anything like "A Man in Full" you will have a terrible disappointment.

This might be a good book, it was hard to tell because the main reader was SO annoying with his sneering Jack Nicholson imitation. After a mean spirirted and irritating introduction read by Tom Wolfe, I grimly soldiered through 5 grindingly boring discs about the history of the semiconductor industry. Does anyone care about the minutia of Silicon Valley anymore? If you do, there are some asute observations buried in the writing. Disc 6 is actually quite good, but it is an appropriation of {theft of?} observations from many disciplines and is completely unrelated to the rest of the book.

Only read this book if you can stand the truth. Wolfe looks at America at the turn of the millennium and sees it clearly. He then describes it as clearly. The culture nabobs will hate it because he skewers them with their own irrelevance. “Intellectuals,” “artists,” the universities and other Nuevo Marxists who pose above real people living real lives are nicely cut down to size. A must read if you believe in progress.