The Kandy-Kolored Tangerine-Flake Streamline Baby Paperback – November 24, 2009

Hanging out with Muhammad Ali BEFORE he fought Liston....with the guys who designed and built the kustom kars of My Misspent Youth....The plight of the young and rich in NYC...Great stuff.

Tom Wolfe is one of those writers who I learned a little bit about in journalism class in college but who I put off reading for decades. This was my loss, and I hope you don't follow in my footsteps. Start reading him now - and start with this anthology.While Wolfe wasn't a sociologist, all of his writing contains lengthy passages containing minute, obsessive, clinical detail of his subjects' dress, hairstyles, social interactions and speech patterns. These alternate with some surprisingly folky attitude and some almost Byzantine-like complex passages (which can be very difficult to follow if you are not a native English speaker with an extensive SAT-level vocabulary). The essays included here are among the earliest of Wolfe's "New Journalism" style which, while nonfiction, are not too different from the style of his much later novels. Some of these essays age better than others (all were written in the early 1960s) as they almost universally focus on the pop culture of the day and some of that culture is now totally obscure to anyone who didn't live through it. You've probably realized that I regard this volume as a bit challenging to get through, but it's certainly worth it and is a very rewarding experience. (Wolfe did simplify matters considerably as his writing style evolved throughout this career).The essays alternate in focus between low-brow culture (disk jockeys, hot rod culture, stock car racing, gossipy tabloid publishers) and high-brow culture (the modern art scene, high society socials). Wolfe's sympathies are almost always with low-brow culture, which sometimes (but not always) allies himself with teenagers, but mostly with working-class midwesterners and Southerners. His high-brow writing is more obviously satirical in tone, and he has little patience for the comedies of manners that passed for etiquitte among New York City's elite in the 1960s.Most reviewers will single out "The Last American Hero" (an article about early NASCAR legend Junior Johnson) as the book's high point. While that is indeed what I would agree is the best-written article here, I think the true heart of the book is "Girl of the Year" which shows an intersection between the youth culture one would think would have Wolfe's sympathies, and the ritzy New York debutante culture that pops up in tabloids and fashion magazines before falling into obscurity. (It also has a hilarious, if unflattering, portrayal of the Rolling Stones).Put in the effort to read this collection, and you will be rewarded with an increased vocabulary, a much better understanding of what early 1960s culture was like, and a great idea of where Tom Wolfe's later explorations would take him. This collection is a true treasure.

What more can be said about one of the best observers of the human condition than this author

Some funny and insightful material here, but I found myself skimming. I like the later stuff--Bonfire of the Vanities, The Right Stuff, A Man in Full--better.

Of course Mr. Wolfe has produced another lapidary exposition on American culture, but what is so refreshing is that there is no condescending in these pieces. Vegas, hot rods, etc. you name it and if it falls under Mr. Wolfe's scrutiny it will be treated, if not with respect, then with understanding. This book like all his works is about AMERICA as only TOM WOLFE can render it and the hell with that early Frenchman, well almost.If Wolfe seems too keen on displaying his erudite at times almost encyclopedic literary and historical antecedents, it is only because he is and was trained to be that way. Unfortunately his critics on E 43 st in Manhattan will never get over this. But let us face he does write for the common in an uncommon fashion.

Who better than author Tom Wolfe (yes, the "Bonfire" guy) to document the burgeoning 1960s counterculture? He turns routine articles into ironic-comic masterpieces worth reading a half-century on (has it really been that long?). His technique is central: a deft narrator's voice to send-up the manners and mores present at the dawn of the youth culture. All along, he was explaining low culture to the high-culture elites of the time.

If you're a Tom Wolfe fan, this is obviously a must-read. The uninitiated can use this as a fine example of New Journalism.The strongest pieces are up front, specifically on Las Vegas and the beginnings of stock car racing and the title-piece on kustom car culture in Southern California.The second half of the book lags a bit as most of the stories about the upper-crust of 1960s New York fall into the we-get-the-idea category. Upon modern reading, some of the material seems dated - winkle-picker boots, etc. - but charmingly so. This is a great snapshot of Wolfe and the send-up style that would come to define him.

Back in the '70s when I was 18 this was a very exciting and relative book, 50 years later horribly dated not relevant to anything today not even as a history book and totally random was quite shocked it actually how bad it is.

Great book..a classic collection of his best writing.

Wolfe wrote essays for the ages. As great a read, today, as fifty years ago. dgp

Interesting, funny and a great writer. Will definitely read again and buy other books by the author.

The book was in perfect condition and they delivered it very fast, I really trust them with the international deliveries, and I get many books from them.

After all these years, Kandy holds up remarkably well. Even though some of the people are gone and the events he writes about are now distant past,it doesn't really matter because the observations remain lucid and spot on. He holds up a mirror to the society snobs and celebrities but you also get the full picture of the times with interviews with pioneers of then emerging trends, from car culture to music recording. My favourite are the observations of the doormen who park cars for the Manhattan elites. This is not the official spoon fed version or the pc activist tripe you get these days from the dimwits writing for the NYT opinion section or the New Yorker... the man has never sold out...check out his latest novel about Miami... Back to Blood. I'm hoping he'll take on Al (Jazeera) Gore next.