Tom Wolfe
American author and journalistWikipedia
133
MENTIONS
81
EPISODES
73
PODCASTS
Search complete. 133 mentions across 81 episodes found for "Tom Wolfe".
Sep 12, 2026
David McWilliamsGUEST
...
David McWilliamsGUEST
so he's like sort of Tom Wolfe for medieval people, right?
Gillian TettHOST
[laughs]
David McWilliamsGUEST
So it's like if you, if you put your Tom Wolfe hat on and The Bonfire of the Vanities.
Gillian TettHOST
And The Bonfire of the Vanities.
David McWilliamsGUEST
Yeah, yeah, yeah, because what he's doing is he's writing a document.
Hugh HewittHOST
George Will, Joseph Epstein, these are great writers of our generation.
Hugh HewittHOST
But a novelist hasn't stepped forward the way Tom Wolfe got the 80s, right? In Bonfire of the Vanities, he just captured it.
Hugh HewittHOST
Do they not exist? Is there no market for a Mark Halperin, Soldier of the Great War kind of novel anymore?
Matt ContinettiGUEST
Well, there are a lot of changes in publishing, as I'm sure you're aware, Hugh, and one of them is that the type of audience for this novel, this kind of, you know, deep, epic novel, the lonesome dove, if you will, to describe the war on terror, that doesn't really exist anymore.
Matt ContinettiGUEST
The public is elsewhere.
Matt ContinettiGUEST
They want romanticy and fairy books.
Matt ContinettiGUEST
Funny, you mentioned Tom Wolfe, though.
Matt ContinettiGUEST
Tom Wolfe's last novel, published in 2012, was called Back to Blood.
Sarah DayHOST
We've also got trailers, first looks, and news for everything from Verity and Warrior Cats to Dungeon Crawler Carl and Dan Brown's The Secret of Secrets.
Sarah DayHOST
And the adaptation pipeline keeps growing with new projects from Anna Todd, Alan Levi, Grady Hendrix, Catherine Center, and Tom Wolfe heading to the screen.
Sarah DayHOST
I'm Sarah Day.
ChrisHOST
And I'm Chris.
William D. CohanGUEST
They're, they're not like Elon and, and Larry Ellison.
William D. CohanGUEST
I mean, and these people just generally, these people with so much money, they have been able-- You know, Tom Wolfe wrote about insulate, insulate, insulate, uh, in Bonfire of the Vanities, and that was prescient because, I mean, these people have perfected being insulated, uh, whether it's being surrounded by people who are, uh, uh, beholden to them and therefore may not, uh, always tell them, uh, give them the best advice or tell them when they're stepping out and behaving poorly.
William D. CohanGUEST
Uh, they obviously have e- every, uh, uh, rich person amenity you could possibly imagine, jets, boats, homes.
William D. CohanGUEST
Um, uh, and I think even more importantly, they seem to be above the law and above any accountability.
Tail DraggerHOST
That was October 14, 1947, and the world has been supersonic ever since.
Tail DraggerHOST
Sources for today's program include Tom Wolfe's The Right Stuff, General Yeager's autobiography written with Leo Janos, and the archives of the National Museum of the United States Air Force.
Tail DraggerHOST
Find us at RadioHangar.com. I'm Tail Dragger.
Tail DraggerHOST
Keep the shiny side up.
Ian BrownGUEST
Well, I think it comes from admiring other greater writers.
Ian BrownGUEST
I mean, I was a big fan of Tom Wolfe and a big fan of Philip Roth and a big fan of Nicholson Baker, who's a contemporary of mine, and of Salinger in his examination of the way people interacted.
Ian BrownGUEST
And those are, they're all detailed people, you know, they're all detailed writers, Updike, you know, they're, they're, they concentrate on the specific and they are curious.
Ian BrownGUEST
But, you know, somebody, one of the nicest compliments, and now no longer with us, friend of mine once gave me, a long time ago, she said, you know, you are pathologically curious.
Ian BrownGUEST
writers.
Ian BrownGUEST
I mean, I was a big fan of Tom Wolfe and a big fan of Philip Roth and a big fan of Nicholson Baker, who's a contemporary of mine, and of Salinger in his examination of the way people interacted.
Ian BrownGUEST
And those are, they're all detailed people, you know, they're all detailed writers, Updike, you know, they're, they're, they concentrate on the specific and they are curious, but you know, somebody that one of the nicest compliments, um, uh, and now no longer with a friend of mine once gave me, uh, a long time ago, she said, you know, you are pathologically curious.
Ian BrownGUEST
And I think that's true.
Courtney MaumGUEST
You know, and I think of the humor that way, too.
Courtney MaumGUEST
Like right now I'm reading Tom Wolfe's A Man in Full and I'm actually picturing the score and it's completely manic and there's just not enough eternal slowness.
Courtney MaumGUEST
And so I'm having a hard time with the book.
Courtney MaumGUEST
So I think a lot about rhythms when it comes to humor as well.
Ramani DurvasulaHOST
It was a transition into more consumerism, more self-help, more accessible entertainment, and more self-expression.
Ramani DurvasulaHOST
In fact, writers like Christopher Lasch and Tom Wolfe called out this generation as actually being narcissistic with the same exuberance we hear people calling out the millennials as narcissistic now.
Ramani DurvasulaHOST
The baby boomers are largely the parents, interestingly, of the millennials, with a few Gen X parents thrown in there, so one is left to wonder, for baby boomers to call millennials narcissistic seems a bit ironic, since they were the generation with whom this narcissistic name-calling began, and now they're sticking it on their own kids.
Ramani DurvasulaHOST
I think it is risky and problematic to stick one generation with this label of the narcissistic generation.
Gadi TaubHOST
I was going, as you were speaking, I reached my library.
Gadi TaubHOST
I have a, I love Tom Wolfe.
Gadi TaubHOST
as an anthropologist.
Gadi TaubHOST
And he has, in this book, it's hooking up, he has two brilliant pieces about the New York Times, which if you've not read, you or our viewers and listeners, you should.
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