This is a ten year old collection of essays. The only ones that feel dated are the pre-9/11 articles on America's place in the world. The rest offer a great insight into Mr. Wolfe's thinking as a writer.

For example, I finally learned what the "Back to Blood" title means. I also got a great explanation of how he likes to construct his books in scenes that have a lot of action, but also an open window to the characters thoughts and misgivings.

I also can see that he based the reporter in Back to Blood on himself, as a young reporter covering Havana.

I think Tom Wolfe is a great writer, extremely brave and intelligent. I recommend this book.

I try to keep my 5 stars ratings to classics that will stand the test of time. So this is 4 of 4.

Loved the Ambush at Fort Bragg chapter. Really enjoyed the other pieces as an interesting look at the 90s

Excellent.

Anyone with a child in school knows the signs all too well. I am intrigued by the parents now invest--the craze began about 1990- in psychologists who diagnose their children as suffering from a defect known as attention deficit disorder, or ADD. Of course, I have no way of knowing whether this "disorder" is an actual, physical, neurological condition or not, but neither does anybody else in this early stage of neuroscience. The symptoms of this supposed malady are always the same. The child, or rather, the boy- 49 out of 50 cases are boys- fidgets around in school, slides off his chair, doesn't pay attention, distracts his classmates during class, and preforms poorly. In an earlier era he would have been pressured to pay attention, work harder, show some self-discipline. To parents caught up in the new intellectual climate of the 1990's, that approach seems cruel, because my little boys problem is... hes wired wrong! The poor little tyke- the fix has been in since birth! Invariably the rents complain, "all he wants to do is sit in front of the television set and watch cartoons and play sega genesis. for how long? "How long? Hours at a time." Hours at a time, as any young neuroscientist will tell you, that boy may have a problem, but its not an attention defecit. Nevertheless, all across America we have the spectacle of an entire generation of little boys, by the tens of thousands being dosed up on ADD's magic bullet of choice, Ritalin, the Ciba-Genera Corporations brand name for the stimulant methylphenidate. I first encountered Ritalin in 1966, when i was in San Francisco doing research for a book on the psychadelic or hippie movement. A certain species of the genus hippe was known as the speed freak, and a certain strain of the speed freak was known as the Ritalin Head. The Ritalin Heads loved Ritalin. You'd see them in the throes of absolute Ritalin raptures-- not a wiggle, not a peep.. they would sit engrossed in anything at all... a manhole cover, their own palm wrinkles... indefinately... through shoulda been mealtime after mealtime ... through raging insomnias.. Pure methylphenidate nirvana.. from 1990-1995 CIBA-gereras sales of Ritalin rose 600%; and not because of the appetites of subsets of the species speed freak in SF, either. it was because an entire generation of American boys, from the best private schools of the NE to the worst sludge-trap public schools of LA and San Diego, was now strung out on methylphenidate, diligently doled out to them every day by their connection, the school nurse! America is a wonderful country! I mean it! No honest writer would challenge that statement! the human comedy never runs out of material! it never lets you down!

the most popular study currently- it is still being featured on JV news shows- is David Lykken + Avke Tellegen's study at the U of Minnesota of 2000 twins that shows, according to these 2 evolutionary psychologists, that an individual's happiness is largely genetic. some people are hardwired to be happy and some are not. success (or failure) in matters of love, money, reputation, or power is transient stuff; you soon settle back down (or up) to the level of happiness you were born with genetically.

-the squeaking of gas pedals before the bumper cars start

-scooping poop with a beach bucket and shovel.

I'm probably only going less than all the way because Wolfe so joyfully savages many of my beliefs and predispositions. That makes me resent that he is so damned fun to read. After reading a story in the SF Chronicle about his upcoming book on neuroscience and language (and I'm interested in that for lots of reasons--right now I'm reading Stuart Shanker and Stanley Greenspan's "The First Idea"), which referred to Wolfe's "Sorry, But Your Soul Just Died," I got this book just to read that essay, and ended up going through the entire work. Apparently, Wolfe can change his mind, since his new book appears to be headed for nurture over nature, at least with language, like "First Idea" and unlike "Sorry Your Soul."

The novella "Ambush at Fort Bragg," and Wolfe's fascinating history of Silicon Valley and Intel's Bob Noyce, "Two Young Men Who Went West," really grabbed me, but all of this collection grabbed me, and sometimes maddened me. And often made me laugh.

Find the Chronicle article at http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article....

I always enjoy Tom Wolfe. He's a fun person to disagree with. His profiles on scientists and The New Yorker are really well executed and trenchant, but the titular essay in this book is total balderdash --it is a prurient, salacious, haphazard, cobbled-together compendium of rumors about the sexy sex that kids are supposedly having now, as if they weren't doing such things since Adam discovered his own boy-parts. It's rare to get an essay with that degree of "you kids get off my lawn (and stop touching naughty bits!)." You half expect a contributing byline from Clint Eastwood, Mike Huckabee, Robert Bork, or George Will - that's how totally clueless and whiny that essay is.

I've no doubt that eighth graders are experimenting in terrifying ways, but there is absolutely nothing new about that, and to pretend otherwise is to brand oneself as terminally out of touch and hopelessly generation-gapped. It reads as especially overwrought in 2015, when rates of teen pregnancy have fallen, corresponding with lower rates of divorce among younger couples and fewer abortions performed about every year (not that those are specifically referenced, but they're implicit). "Hooking Up" (the essay) promises some kind of inexorable slouching toward Gomorrah (to borrow from the aforementioned arch-prude Bork), but basically the opposite has come true: young people haven't become hopelessly scarlet libertines (any more than we were fifteen or twenty years ago, and probably less). It's still worth the read, in the same way that it's worthwhile to watch "Reefer Madness" and giggle over the bizarre and apocalyptic premonitions, all delivered with the total conviction and utmost gravitas of a traffic island prophet holding a "THE END IS NEAR" sign. Maybe the publisher and editor came up with that tack (sexing up the title and front flap) to sell books, but it takes away from the quality of the rest of the tome. So it goes

But the rest of the book is lots of fun, so don't let that first piece turn you off, or you'll miss out.

At least Wolfe gives the reader notice in his preface that this book is basically a rambling free association of his thoughts on the current status of religion, morality, social conscience, transdisciplinary education, and neuroscientific theories in the US.

The title is certainly misleading as discussions on "hooking up" and other sexual mores occupy only a small section at the book's beginning. The vast majority of the book is a detailed account of the development of the computer and certain silicon valley corporations. Turns out "hooking up" can have a sexual, technological, or philosophical context.

While somewhat interesting, these stories have little to do with the stated focus of this book. Other parts of the book are poorly organized and reading it is like wading through quicksand.

Collection of essays, mostly, and one novella.

The essays ranged from good to great, though on some of them, the curmudgeonly conservativism got a little much. Nevertheless I found myself agreeing with the way his cynical eye sees the world far more than a self-described liberal really should.

Really, Tom Wolfe functions best as a critic of human puffed-up-ness and there is plenty of that kind of thing.

But the first essay, in which he connects Midwestern spirit, morality and general ethos to the predominant culture of Silicon valley was quite good, and I especially enjoyed his hilarious skewering of Mailer, Updike and Irving's apoplectic reactions to the insane success of Wolfe's briliant A Man in Full.

Included is a novella excised from A Man in Full, in which Wolfe sets his eyes on the TV industry, especially the vicious world of investigative reporting.

Politics aside, I would probably read almost anything Tom Wolfe wrote due to the way his writing just flows. YOu love it or hate it, I suppose -- but I love it.

(Having said that, haha, I ended up skipping the last two essays which were some kind of skewering of the New Yorker magazine's aesthetics in the 1960s...just didn't feel too relevant to me 60 years later...

I enjoyed this collection of essays and one short story, but it is not Wolfe at his finest. I noticed more than I had with his earlier works just how US-centric his viewpoints are and how little he criticizes the country, specifically in its foreign policies. I'm thinking of the pieces "Hooking Up" and "In The Land of The Rococo Marxists," both of which are very entertaining and make some excellent observations, but in which he overstates his case. Of course, that is Wolfe's style. "Sorry But Your Soul Just Died," is another example this, in which he exaggerates the role of genetics in human development. I really enjoyed the short story, "Ambush at Fort Bragg," which had some great dialogue and did a good job of illustrating the issue of homosexuality (and homophobia) in the military. Also, "Two Young Men Who Went West," was a fascinating history of Silicon Valley and the way in which its midwestern protestant roots shaped the egalitarian culture there. In "My Three Stooges," Wolfe slashes at literary critics of his novel A Man in Full, rehashing his argument for the big realistic novel, which as a fan of the billion-footed-beast, I thought was bang-on. The last section, his pieces on the New Yorker from the 60s, seemed to me just tacked on conveniently so as to thicken up the book. On the whole, some good nuggets in the collection, but its not his best.

Not my favorite of Tom's work but it benefits from the vignette style of storytelling. Unfortunately "Ambush at Fort Bragg", the longest chapter/story of the entire book, is certainly the weakest point. Comparable to any of his other works, when Tom's on he is on man. He takes you to that place, those characters, that feeling, be it silicon valley, college dorms or wall street. Overall the weakest of his novels I've encountered thus far, not awful but nothing special. 2.5/5 stars.

I recently found this book in my stacks and checked the reviews on Amazon to see if I should invest the time in reading it. The reviews were all over the place... some loved it, a lot hated it, many gave it mediocre marks. After reading it I see why - there's something somewhere in "Hooking Up" to piss off everyone. I enjoyed most of the book immensely.

My infuriating moment came near the end of the 3rd section as Wolf describes the hyper-reaction to E. O. Wilson's groundbreaking work in the field he (Wilson) named Sociobiology. I understand the controversy and why, but towards the end of Wolf's treatment describing the controversy Wolf uses the name of Michael Behe in the same breath with E. O. Wilson and Richard Dawkins. Behe is the most credentialed American scientific spokesman for "intelligent design" movement which is the current purient-speak for Biblical Creationism, since the Supreme Court outlawed teaching creationism with the Edwards v Aguilera decision of 25 years ago. Behe is an example of how tenure can come back to bite a respected university in the ass - to the point where Lehigh University has posted a disclaimer on their website effectively saying.... "Hey ... we're sorry but we gave this idiot tenure before he went crazy and starting advocating creationism and now we can't fire him." Behe is a joke as are all advocates of creationism-intelligent design myth and once you take the discussion out of the political arena and put it in a court of law where evidence actually matters, the intelligent designers get there asses handed to them --- see "The Devil in Dover" by Lauri Lebo or "40 Days and 40 Nights" by Matthew Chapman or the excellent NOVA documentary "Judgement Day." So I took a bit of an objection to Wolf using Behe's name in the same thought as Wilson and Dawkins (who are paragons of actual modern science).

The books consists of about 10 sections or stories (only one is fiction). In the preface, entitled Hooking Up, Wolfe describes American life at the turn of the 21st century. Except for his portrayal of the common working man Wolf's portrayal was accurate and amusing.

The 2nd section, Two Young Men Who Went West, I found to be the most entertaining and enlightening - thru the story of Bob Noyce, Wolf tells the tale of the American semi-conductor industry in the silicon valley.

This book is certainly worth reading.

Although he's mostly ego, Wolfe does entertain. This book needed 15 years on the shelf to age, but nothing is quite a funny as reading about the future in a book that was written in the past. Topically, the "novella" (wtf?) contained therein, "Ambush at Fort Bragg" [sic] [if I'm not getting the title quite right] was most gratifying to read the same week as the SCOTUS legalized gay, make that LGBT, marriage. More layers of interest are available to us NC residents: this is set is our backyard? Oh, yeah, it is. Other topics: neuroscience, and a closing diatribe on William Shawn of "The New Yorker" that is most embarrassing to read. And still, I hope there's more Wolfe to come....and that I won't have to wait 15 years for it to achieve humor.