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The Bonfire of the Vanities Paperback – March 4, 2008

by Tom Wolfe (Author)

753 customer reviews

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Vintage Tom Wolfe, The Bonfire of the Vanities, the #1 bestseller that will forever define late-twentieth-century New York style. "No one has portrayed New York Society this accurately and devastatingly since Edith Wharton" (The National Review)“A page-turner . . . Brilliant high comedy.” (The New Republic)

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Editorial Reviews

Review

“A big, bitter, funny, craftily plotted book that grabs you by the lapels and won't let you go.” ―The New York Times Book Review

“The Bonfire of the Vanities chronicles the collapse of a Wall Street bond trader, and examines a world in which fortunes are made and lost at the blink of a computer screen. . . . Wolfe's subject couldn't be more topical: New Yorkers' relentless pursuit and flaunting of wealth, and the fury it evokes in the have-nots.” ―USA Today

“A superb human comedy and the first novel ever to get contemporary New York, in all its arrogance and shame and heterogeneity and insularity, exactly right.” ―The Washington Post Book World

“A page-turner . . . Brilliant high comedy.” ―The New Republic

“More than a tour de force.” ―Time

From the Inside Flap

Tom Wolfe's modern American satire tells the story of Sherman McCoy, a Wall Street "Master of the Universe" who has it all -- a Park Avenue apartment, a job that brings wealth, power and prestige, a beautiful wife, an even more beautiful mistress.
Suddenly, one wrong turn makes it all go wrong, and Sherman spirals downward in a sudden fall from grace that sucks him into the ravenous heart of a New York City gone mad during the go-go, racially turbulent, socially hilarious 1980s.

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Product details

Paperback: 704 pages
Publisher: Picador; First edition (March 4, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0312427573
ISBN-13: 978-0312427573
Product Dimensions: 5.5 x 1.2 x 8.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 753 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,987 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #38 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Humor > Lawyers & Criminals
- #66 in Books > Literature & Fiction > Genre Fiction > Satire
- #203 in Books > Humor & Entertainment > Humor > Satire

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Mojave Narrows

Great Read

February 22, 2018

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

After seeing the movie numerous times, I thought it was time to finally read the book. Although sometimes the language can be colorful and literary, overall I could not put it down, and finished it in just a few days.

13 people found this helpful

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October 14, 2016

Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase

After 30 years it still resonates -- kind of sad really. Excellent read, for "readers," not for those who like snippet type reading. Only beef. Why of all possible endings did he choose this one?! Very unsatisfying after a substantial commitment to the story. Feels like he rushed the ending.

6 people found this helpful

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David Schoonover

The Space Race as Viewed by Tom Wolfe: a Classic Example of New Journalism.

June 29, 2018

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

One of Tom Wolfe's finest, and a terrific example of what he called 'new journalism'. Good as the movie was, the book's better. This started life as an article about Apollo 17, and evolved into a rollicking history of the space race, through the Mercury series of space launches. It portrays the lives of test pilots, both before the astronaut corps was born, and after. And, thankfully, it pays homage to the original hotshit test pilot: Chuck Yeager.
It's one of my favorite books, and I've read it cover to cover a dozen times. I like the story and the history, but I love the way Tom Wolfe played with language. Buy it for the adventure, and love it for the words.

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Dominic F. Laniewicz

was a wonderful writer with a wry sense of humor and an ...

June 20, 2018

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Tom Wolfe, may he rest in peace, was a wonderful writer with a wry sense of humor and an ability to see the absurd in our great American Republic. I lived the years of which he writes and he has caught the time perfectly. It was a perilous time - I and my classmates did shelter under our wooden desks in atomic bomb drills - and so soon after WW II the paranoia was probably justified to some extent. We looked at NASA's failures with great consternation and rejoiced in the eventual triumphs of the space program with satisfaction and joy. The astronauts truly did have the "right stuff" for that time. I can attest from my 12 years in the U.S. Navy that his descriptions of military fighter pilots are on the money. In their business, as in that of test pilots, the ego and the skills go hand in hand. Chuck Yeager was and is one of my American heroes. A great read capturing a unique period in American history skillfully and entertainingly.

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July 2, 2018

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Bonfire of the Vanities has made me a Tom Wolfe fan. It paints a truthful picture of late 20th Century morality. There are no heroes in this book. The egos and dark flaws of its characters are on display for the world to read. Who knows? You might find a bit of yourself in this classic. I don't consider myself a student of literature, but I'd be surprised if this book wasn't required reading for literature majors, or perhaps social studies and first year law students . It's a great read.

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R. Estes

Don't know why I waited so long to read this

January 23, 2016

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This book doesn't need a recommendation from me. I'll just comment on the Kindle production of it, which was good. I mention this because comments about typos in the Kindle version of Wolfe's The Right Stuff made me cautious about buying that book, and the sample indeed had obvious errors, so I will only read that in a printed copy.

5 people found this helpful

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James Sawyer

Very entertaining book, by a master

July 9, 2018

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

Very entertaining. I reread this in memory of Tom Wolfe and it is very good and still pertinent to our times. He is the best at setting scenes, dialogue and social commentary . I highly recommend this book if you have not read Tom Wolfe before now.

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Byron

Tom Wolfe wrote the heck outta this

May 29, 2018

Format: Kindle EditionVerified Purchase

This book is about the Mercury Project, NASA’s first manned space missions, and the origins of the astronaut program.

Tom Wolfe was a practitioner of “New Journalism.” The only previous experience that I had with that style was with Hunter S. Thompson’s alcohol-and-other-drugs-fueled escapades in Las Vegas while covering a race for Sports Illustrated and his alcohol-fueled experiences at the Kentucky Derby. Based on those reading experiences, it was my understanding that one of the hallmarks of New Journalism was Journalist-as-Participant. The historical record, however, is pretty clear that a drunk Tom Wolfe had not, in fact, been blasted into orbit with John Glenn or any of the other Mercury 7 astronauts. How then is The Right Stuff an example New Journalism?

Well, Tom Wolfe wrote his butt off. The book reads more “literary” than as an object of traditional journalism. Let me explain…no, there is too much…let me sum up…A traditional journalistic or scholarly book about the early astronauts and “what made them tick” might include quotations from interviews with those astronauts and people that knew them, government officials and news reporters from the time, and maybe a few academics to provide some Authoritative Interpretation. The writer wouldn’t put forth a theory of their own about the astronaut motivations, or, if they did, there’d be a ton of explicit sources backing them up.

Tom Wolfe just puts his theories out there, front and center, and then writes with such force – with repeated interjections, sometimes with exclamations! – and capitalizations and callbacks and pretty descriptions and literary techniques that the reader will forget that they are reading some nonfiction book; this story may be (at least in some sense) true, but it reads like a novel. It never really dives into the minutiae of bureaucratic organization nor is it really interested in any one’s point of view other than that which drives the author’s central point: the astronauts were military test pilots fueled by a Manly Competitive Desire to BE THE BEST and that performing well under pressure in that competition exhibits The Right Stuff (which is never explicitly defined, although I have my own theories).

I am a fan of David Foster Wallace’s writing, and I could see a clear influence from Tom Wolfe’s style in Wallace’s writing. And David Foster Wallace was certainly not the only literary writer influenced by Wolfe. Fans of literature really should check this out, just to trace back certain styles to their creator (or popularizer). Science fiction fans could be inspired by a (more or less) true account of fighter pilot personality and how their influence (or lack thereof) could impact a fictional space program. Fans of nonfiction could see that there are ways of telling a nonfiction story rather than the usual, traditional methodologies. I’d recommend this book to anyone, just with the disclaimer that it is NOT like the usual biographical or documentary-style rendition of the Mercury Project. The writer’s style is definitely noticeable, and some might be distracted by it (or it could just not be to their taste).

9 people found this helpful

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Most recent customer reviews

Robert Palladino

NYC in the 80s!

Great time capsule of NYC as Wolfe interweaves the sociological and cultural mores of 1980s NYC. Really enjoyed this one.

Published 13 hours ago

Bill Schott

Super good narrative of the early days of the Space Race

A very well written and intriguing book. A must read for anyone who was around in the early days of the space race or anyone younger who is interested in how it all got started.

Published 1 day ago

anony

narrator ruined it for me

the book is good but the narrator nearly ruined it for me...i just didn't like his voice and how he read it ;-(((

Published 2 days ago

Page Turner

A book that brought memories to mind.

Book in A one shape. I gave it as a gift to a friend which brought smiles

Published 3 days ago

Amazon Customer

Suspense. We waste a lot of aircraft

The book caught me immediately and kept hold until the very end. I hadn't read the book, just saw the movie and I thought it was terrible . The book is so much better.Read more

Published 4 days ago

Kentdav

Review of America's entry into the space race

A well written non-fiction book that takes the reader back to the late 1950's into American's efforts to keep up and surpass the Soviet Union in placing a man into space.Read more

Published 8 days ago

Stepan

Historical account of events. Not much else

This book is an extremely detailed account of the development of NASA and the early American space flights. That and nothing more. It is not a motivational or self-help book.Read more

Published 12 days ago

J. K. Jardine

I brought back some good thoughts of the space program

I remember all the news about this book. I brought back some good thoughts of the space program.

Published 22 days ago

Indygreg

its a really good story, but it is too damn long

its a really good story, but it is too damn long. I read a lot of books (about 1 a week) and am not put off by large books as long as it is needed.Read more

Published 25 days ago

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