Rating: 
Summary: The smartest book of the year
Review: David Brooks has hit a home run with this book, the most original piece of social criticism in years.
Rating:
Summary: George Will Was Right Again!
Review: It was George Will's column that led us to order this new book by a Weekly Standard staffer. This book is a quick and easy read with lots of chuckles and a few guffaws. Brooks traces the development of a new "meritocracy" at the top of the American pay heap, that has combined the best values of the bourgeousie and the bohemian cultures of times gone by. Thus, the Bobo has graduated from an ivy league college in the post 1960s era, and enjoys such pleasures as drinking latte and owning a restaurant-type kitchen range. Brooks' sense of humor is gentle, as he himself is a Bobo. If you found The Bell Curve to be full of interesting theory despite its "political incorrectness," you will enjoy this book as well. If you're a "boomer," you'll find lots to enjoy here!
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Summary: Brooks is one of our best social critics
Review: With Bobos in Paradise, David Brooks establishes himself as one of our sharpest social critics. Buy this book!
Rating: 
Summary: The Perils of Upbeat Criticism
Review: Brooks appears on Matthews show, and seems intelligent. That's why I bought the book. Generally, this book hits all the high points of American intellectualism. He tosses out the right names. The book is sort of satiric, and sort of serious.Since it was written in the Bubble period, one can be charitable. Maybe this was the most criticism one could offer up. Now things are more serious. The discussion of how elite universities, how they held their power, could be channeled to ask why academics were so wrong in Iraq? Why are America's ideas, like neo-conservatism, so, um, lame? Is that the word? Brooks gets into a very long discussion of moral absolutes. It's kind of a "Well, if you aren't on the plan, why aren't you going to Hell?" approach. It's a little breathtaking. One can argue that religions differ on the standards, the absolute standards, so if we are here to reconcile religious differences, life is going to be very bloody. He doesn't seem to accept this point, which is fine. Unfortunately, it devalues his idea of moral relativism and the Bobos, though he doesn't use that term, as I recall. I guess it turns out that being shallow, a bit insipid, and totally materialist has a downside. A lot of the poor world tends to hate you, and wants to destroy you. Oh, dear. What a drag. So many snags. So, his point about academia and top schools is interesting, as history, but what are these schools really churning out? Why do we have such a large income disparity? Why are we working so hard to build an elite? It's like Brooks is saying the elite is good enough, why sweat it, but I'm not really in it for vague and undefined reasons. You have to be bright to pull it off. One could ask why anyone would want to pull it off? To have a bestseller?
Rating: 
Summary: An Interesting Book or Two
Review: "Bobo" is author David Brooks' acronym for a Bourgeois Bohemian, a synthesis of Reaganism and Woodstock, the folks he says are running the country today. Bobos are new money--the meritocracy of smart folk who have become rich as fast-track professionals, clever enterpreneurs, start-up capitalists, or visionaries like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos. Some Bobos are capitalistic hippies and some are mellowed-out business people; Bobo is their common meeting ground. True to their mixed heritage, Bobos love oxymoronic concepts like "sustainable development," "cooperative individualism" or "liberation management." Reconciliation is their middle name. Bobos dislike showing off, but of course all rich people do, so they are allowed to show off in discreet ways. Mercedes are out, but SUV's are in. Jewelry is out, but eco-tourism is in. Bobox buy the same things the rest of us do (bread, chicken, coffee) but pay from 3 to 10 times the mass-market price in search of something better, organic, or more planet-friendly. In fact, anything that shows one to be a friend to the planet is fair game, no matter how silly. There's even a toothpaste that encourages germs to leave the mouth. Needless to say, it takes a huge income to be a true Bobo. Brooks almost had this reviewer feeling sorry for the poor U. of Chicago professor forced to live on a "mere" household income of $180K, barely enough to cover private schools for her kids and a nanny. The wretch suffers from what Brooks calls "status-income disequilibrium" or "SID" because her pay, while handsome, pales before her similarly educated peers in the professions and business, with whom she has to socialize at symposia. America teems with the newly rich. Bobos are most easily spotted in "Latte Towns" like Madison, Wisconsin or Northampton, Massachusetts. Ideally, such venues have "a Swedish-style government, German-style pedestrian malls, Victorian houses, Native American crafts, Italian coffee, Berkeley human rights groups, and Beverly Hills income levels." That's where you'll see the businessman wearing hiking boots patiently explaining 401(k) plans to the aging hippie who's making a killing selling bicyles, or software, or sandwiches. Brooks is at his best describing the furbelows and follies of Bobo-dom. But Bobos in Paradise is really two books in one. Massive amounts of this text could have been computer cut-and-pasted from a work called something like American Intellectual History: 1955-2000. Sometimes Brooks maintains a light tone (without being truly funny), sometimes he is merely factual. I really didn't need to hear three times how tendentious the old Partisan Review gang was back in the fifties. I didn't really need to hear how a Bobo should act on a political chat show (smile a lot and be positive). I didn't really need to hear how TV has coopted intellectual life (that process began in the fifties with J. Fred Muggs and Steve-a-reeno, before most Bobos were born, and it was dealt with much better in the book Nobrow, anyway). Don't get me wrong, the funny parts of this book are quite funny, and for that reason alone I'm giving it four stars. If it had been consistently funny and satiric I would have given it five. I came real close to giving it a three because the slow stretches, while not inaccurate, did little to further the author's thesis. If you intend to write pop sociology, better to write first-rate pop sociology than second-rate academic sociology. One point to ponder is whether the term "Bobo" will catch on. In 1945 no one had heard of a "Highbrow" and in 1980 no one knew what a "Yuppie" was. And there were plenty of columnists who said that we didn't need such words, yet they became coin of the realm anyway. If it strikes you that your local rich people are starting to act like a fusion of Richard Gere and Bill Gates, or Al Gore and Jerry Garcia, then maybe the Bobo moniker might just cover them all. Hopeless trendoids, take note and read this book before the inevitable paperback edition.
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Summary: Very amusing
Review: I enjoyed this book which, as I read it, is really a social satire more than a sociological study. A few sentences made me cringe thinking of my own lifestyle. Yes, I like latte; yes, I like social justice. Oh my gosh! I may be a bobo! Very funny, actually. People who are offended by it may be taking it too seriously (taking oneself too seriously is also perhaps a bobo trait). It certainly made me take a hard look at my own silly purchasing habits. Actually, I really worried when I realized that I didn't find ~$15,000 for a slate shower (as he mentioned) offensive. So this is a lot of fun.
Rating: 
Summary: Misguided
Review: One hates to be a snob, but the author seems to know very little about the true upper class. The people about whom he writes are largely middle class--upper middle class, perhaps, but "middle" nonetheless. For better or worse, I would argue that the "bobos" are not, in fact, running the country, either. He gives them far too much credit in terms of their supposed "power." And George W. a bobo? Hardly. He's as elite and old money as they come; it's just that he has a Texas twang! I also would argue that the group about which he writes is nothing new. The nouveau riche will always be with us, and they will always be a group of show-off super-consumers who are slightly ill at ease as they try to reconcile newfound wealth vs. humbler, occasionally bohemian roots.
Rating: 
Summary: On proper grooming of your middlebrow
Review: While brisk and often amusing in parts, this facile and self-congratulatory piece of pop sociology overlooks many fundamental aspects of our society, and provides muddled interpretations of most others, cheerfully endorsing the status quo. Its central thesis, that modern American life is governed by a fusion of bourgeouis and bohemian values, is simply spurious. I do not recommend this book for anyone seeking a better understanding of the underpinnings of class and the currents of culture in the US. Better to go back and read the classics Brooks references: Paul Goodman, Arendt, Daniel Bell, Jane Jacobs, William H. Whyte. Things haven't really changed so much as Brooks claims.
A few particular quibbles I have with the book:
1) What Meritocracy?
Brooks argues that the era of WASP privilege has been eclipsed by a brave new age of meritocracy ushered in by standardized testing and egalitarian college admissions practices. This is true in part, but grossly overstated by Brooks. The levers of power in our society are still held by white protestant men, despite a Kissinger here and a Condi there. Further, the best predictor of SAT scores continues to be parental income. The legacy system is alive and well. Perhaps the most gaping hole in Brooks' analysis is the absence of any mention of the middle and working classes, and their position with regard to the upper-middle
class he examines.
2)Bobos, or just yuppies?
When GW Bush, the born-again blueblood scion of generations of CT Yankees is said to be a Bobo, does the term really have any meaning? Despite repeated assertions, Brooks does not make a convincing case that his 'Bobo' represents a new and equal synthesis of the Bohemian and the Bourgeouis. The caricatures Brooks presents for inspection represent a superficial bohemianism, a bohemianism of the checkbook. They are simply the old bourgeouis, sans Christianity, and with a life thoroughly colonized by 'you-are-what-you-buy' consumer capitalism. True bohemianism, to me, means sacrificing the stultifying comforts of bourgeouis society (security, material possessions, safety from criticism, and yeah, good dental care) for the risks and rewards of a life in search of beauty and truth, whether that happens in front of a canvas, in the wilderness, on the barricades, or in the monastery.
3) Don't kill your idols, reread them!
Brooks' attempt to repudiate the great cultural critics and public intellectuals of the last century (like Lionel Trilling and Hannah Arendt) in favor of the TV and op-ed pundits of our time is craven and presumptive. The old guard made statements that were too sweeping, Brooks argues, too hostile to the mainstream. What's worse, he maintains, they weren't in touch with 'real life', as it's lived in the boardroom and cul-de-sac. Much better, he argues, are the great sound-bite critics of our day, who can offer up a few glib, unthreatening bon mots between commercials, sanctifying the bourgeouis mores they know so intimately. Great critics such as, well, David Brooks. I leave it to the reader to judge the relative merits of the critical output of the 1950s against that of our own era.
Rating:
Summary: Field guide to the creative class
Review: This lighthearted piece of social criticism examines the so-called educated class, positing that today's elite grew out of the hippie flower children of the '60s into the money-hungry yuppies of the '80s, to reach an uneasy truce between their conflicting ethos today -- to become "Bourgeois Bohemians," or "Bobos," for short. This new "meritocracy," composed of dot-com millionaires, Hollywood producers, pop culture analysts and other members of the "creative class," has successfully overthrown the old money elite, which inherited their megabucks instead of earning them.
I suspect many readers will recognize themselves in these pages, sometimes uncomfortably so. All the time I was reading the book, I was shopping at Pottery Barn, listening to NPR and searching for a lost spiritual identity in cultures foreign to my own, just as this book posits most Bobos do. (Of course, I lack the money that these people supposedly have, so I can still feel superior about that.) But the author gracefully admits that he's a Bobo too, and even though he gently pokes fun at this compromised generation, he is very fond of them at the same time.
The book is amazingly easy to read for nonfiction, mostly because Brooks approaches his subject with such gentle humor. I particularly enjoyed the chapter on Bobo recreation, in which Brooks describes a trek through a gigantic outdoors outfitters store as if he were climbing up the side of an ice-covered mountain, with the goal of reaching the coffeeshop on the top floor. I also enjoyed the description of the life span of an intellectual, the apex of which is described this way: "Books and panels are fine, but in the end, those who are not on television find their lives are without meaning." Well, that explains my feeling of spiritual hopelessness.
Rating:
Summary: Brooks' brush strokes are too broad
Review: Thoughtful and deep but make a few too many generalizations. I don't know too many of these upper class twits as it turns out. Still, there are some observations about Bobo consumptive patterns that utterly ring true, in my experience.
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