HOOKING UP

"Hooking Up" ranges all over the modern world; in it Tom Wolfe updates us on the sexual manners and mores of teenagers (he is not adverse to doing a survey of teenage address books to find out exactly how many of them don't know the names of the boy/girl they've just hooked up with). From this he moves effortlessly to an investigation of the fundamental ways in which our lives and self-perceptions have changed, living as we do in a modern world of genetic engineering and neuroscience. There are pieces on "sting T.V." as well as forecasts of radical changes sweeping the world of the arts. "Hooking Up" closes with the legendary, never-before-reprinted pieces about "The New Yorker" and its famously reclusive editor William Shawn, pieces which early on helped win Wolfe his matchless reputation for reportorial bravura and spot-on insight. A glorious, questioning, memorable book, "Hooking Up" shows Tom Wolfe at the very top of his form.