Rating: 
Summary: Wolfe Right On!
Review: I'm keeping this book for future use. To follow all the avenues Tom opens up will take years, but it will be fun...
Rating: 
Summary: Well¿¿I did like the cranky bits.
Review: I'm wondering if the raison d'etre of book was to painlessly fulfill a contractual agreement with Wolfe's publisher. I've already enjoyed Ambush at Fort Bragg in Rolling Stone. A friend swears he already read Your Soul Just Died - on-line, no less. Some of the other essays unfortunately feel under-edited and patched together. In spite of all that, I have to say I really enjoyed Wolfe's full-on crankiness in The New Yorker Affair and My Three Stooges. They made me giggle.
Rating: 
Summary: Disjointed Flashes of Brilliance
Review: I've been a Tom Wolfe fan for more than 30 years and have always been frustrated by the leisurely pace of his literary production. His major works have been few, and he allowed more than a decade to pass between Bonfire of the Vanities and A Man in Full, the tantalizing and highly successful forays into fiction that have marked the maturation of his career. Apparently Wolfe's publishers, watching financial opportunity dribble away under the weight of writer's block, have been frustrated too, because "Hooking Up" gives the impression that the author may have compiled it under duress. The book is largely a collection of previously published pieces, some of them very old, patched together with spicy bits of new turn-of-the-millennium type commentary. I tried my best to discern some pattern to the choice of articles that were included, or to the order in which they were presented, but I can see little. There's one piece of short fiction, written very much in the style of his novels, and which is vintage Wolfe, but which loses force thrown in this way as an out-of-context fragment. The rest of the pieces are non-fiction and cover a crazy-quilt of subjects, many of them arcane. However, part of the greatness of Tom Wolfe is that he's never boring, imbuing as he does the most mundane material with intensity, insight and humor. In one essay, for example, he tells the story Edward O. Wilson, an introvert who devoted his early life to the scientific study of ants and went on from there to become a famous (among academics) and highly controversial proponent of biological determinism. In a similar nerdy-heroic vein, other republished essays focus on scientists and sixties technology wizards, foreshadowing Michael Lewis 30 years later in both style and content. Great writers can be petty human beings at times and, disappointingly, this side of Wolfe's nature is apparent occassionally in Hooking Up, most egregiously in "My Three Stooges". The 'stooges' in this sharp little diatribe turn out to be no lesser personages than Norman Mailer, John Updike, and John Irving, all three of whom publicly attacked Wolfe when A Man in Full appeared in print. Wolfe's inference that they were motivated by jealousy at the runaway success of his book is probably fair enough, although he stoops to the same level himself here, rounding out the spectacle of America's senior literary titans, the 'stooges' plus Wolfe now, behaving like a flock of catty old gossips. The book closes in this same sarcastic mode with Wolfe's gleeful reproduction of hostile parodies he wrote in the 1960's of the quirky people and stuffy culture surrounding The New Yorker magazine. Despite all these limitations, and despite the venomous writer's shop-talk, Hooking Up is a book that I have to recommend, at least to Tom Wolfe fans. Many of these pieces, taken by themselves, still shimmer with his genius and love of life. They're enough to make us hungry for a real book from him again, a project which at one point he promises he's currently at work on. We can only hope it doesn't take him another ten years to produce it!
Rating:
Summary: Wolfe Scores
Review: I've previously enjoyed The Right Stuff and Wolfe's two novels, but I had never read any of his essays or short stories. "Hooking Up" was an excellent, accessible introduction into these genres. The essays in the book cover a range of topics about modern America including its sexual mores, the rise of technology, art and contemporary novels. He makes many great arguments for the greatness and unique character of America and uses his intelligent wit, knowledge of philosophy and historical facts to make strong cases. His writing, as always, is excellent and the stories were insightful. This collection also includes a novella that is both fun and concise (not always Wolfe's strong suit). I think this is a fabulous book for Wolfe fans like myself, but also good for people who want a quick introduction to him without committing to an 800 page novel. Further, it would be great reading for people interested in American Studies and provides a good starting point for lengthy debates. This is a very good book and well worth purchasing.
Rating:
Summary: A Breath of Fresh Air
Review: If Tom Wolfe weren't already famous, he probably couldn't have found mainstream publication for many of these pieces. That is a compliment. In a world where the word "diversity" has become a catch phrase narrowly applied to a very select number of ethnic groups and political viewpoints, Wolfe has the cachet to put across opinions that would be unacceptable from an unknown, no matter how talented. This eclectic collection is an excellent value -- pulling together new pieces, old gems and fiction. Most valuable in his rerun Tribune pieces lampooning the New Yorker was its context -- the original mission of its founder back in 1925 was to mimic a certain type of British literary periodical. It is hard to believe that this fairly harmless parody caused such a fuss back then -- but evidence that political correctness under another name was already alive and kicking. I would have welcome a P.S. Under Tina Brown, the New Yorker did change radically -- I would have liked to see Wolfe's comment. Leftist academia, touched on in "The Land of the Roccoco Marxists" is an easy and popular target among conservative commentators. Here Wolfe likewise borders just a bit on a rant -- I would have liked to see him expand on the topic even more. I dabbled in Marxist/feminist literary theory in graduate school and am still utterly perplexed by the experience, being otherwise a citizen of the nonacademic, real world. Several years back I remember Wolfe saying his next big book was going to be about the world of higher education. More please.
Rating:
Summary: He sees the future
Review: If you believe enough reviews of this book, you won't read it. That would be a shame. Beginning with the outcry of 'serious literature' champions, including several of his contemporaries, upon publication of A Man in Full, the literary world seems obsessed with deciding what Wolfe should be, rather than treasuring what he is. And that is this: our most accurate social critic of modern America, as dead-on now as he was 40 years ago. Do you wonder about implications of changing sexual mores? Unraveling the human genome? This is a perfect place to begin seeing the future. Don't sell Wolfe short--leave that to the more informed.
Rating:
Summary: Flawless!
Review: If you don't know Wolfe, this is a great place to start. If you do, you'll love this. Not a word or concept out of place. Fascinating, well-written and most enjoyable. Inspired me to re-read A Man in Full and Bonfire of the Vanities.
Rating:
Summary: Wolfe is the Mac-Daddy of American Greatness
Review: If you love living in America, if you're thrilled by the raw courage of entrepeneurial effort that explodes into success, and if you refuse to accept the center-left line America's liberal elite wants to hand you, then Tom Wolfe is your go-to guy. He's hard-working, brilliant, and writes like a man playing a burning piano. Although many know him best for his novels like "Bonfire of the Vanities" and "A Man in Full", you're missing his best work if you don't read the essay collections like "Hooking Up". In this volume, we get the true story behind the birth of Silicon Valley, a tale of a great artist no one knows because he possesses actual skill, a novella skewering the television news magazines, and several other gems. If you have a Wolfe collection, add this book to it. If you don't have a Wolfe collection, start one!
Rating: 
Summary: Don't Bother
Review: In general I love Tom Wolfe's work especially Man in Full. Quite frankly I found this volume of old essays dull. The essay on the founding of HP was interesting. Much of the rest of the book appeared to be an attempt to make himself feel more important by taking shots at any who criticize him... see My Three Stooges. Ambush at Fort Bragg would be more interesting if I could determine his point of attack. Did he attack the media or the homophobic soldiers? The last portion of the book about his clash with the New Yorker would be a lot more interesting if I was 20 years older and lived in or cared about NYC. I couldn't finish this book and that has only happened one other time. Maybe I'm just not as smart as Mr. Wolfe would require I be to read this book. Don't bother.
Rating:
Summary: Deliciously witty but insightful
Review: Like David Remnick, Tom Wolfe's background was journalism before he ventured into the novel territory. I heard so much about Tom Wolfe and the hooha that he generated (even featured in the Times magazine) when his much awaited novel (which took one decade to write) was released into the market few yrs back. Thru blind faith, I sourced this book & read it, hoping that his work did live up to his name. "Hooking Up" is a book with a mixed element comprises of social commentaries and a novella. Some of them highly interesting, some of them I just couldn't bother with but they all revealed America from the inside out, just as Tom Wolfe did for "Bonfire of the Vanities" by showing to us the rot within the American society. Highlights in this book, for me anyway, would be the changes of American society towards the sex issue, when sex is sex, the comparison of phases of intimacy between now & 30 yrs ago; the transformation of Santa Clara Valley into what's better known as Silicon Valley nowadays, the description of two men (Noyce in particular) who brought with them a new corporate culture, invention over brawn which projected America to be the ultimate self-made billionaires' haven; intriguing insight into the research which allows human being to see what the others are thinking and what their minds are functioning to, and questioning the validity of human's soul, whether it's the rite thing to be playing God; the novella about homophobia in the army; lastly, the parodying of The New Yorker being a living dinasour. The whole book is compelling to read, and for Americans that are within their own shorelines, perhaps, what's written here they could live without as they have already known the facts but for us out there who are clamouring to understand the American society better, this book is a revelation. Highly recommended.
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