Rating: 
Summary: Excellent read, but not completely convincing.
Review: This book gets 5 stars because it succeeds magnificently in what one ultimately reads any book for -- to delight or entertain oneself. It manages this despite a weak main argument. The author hyperbolizes by imputing the standards and tastes of a small liberal, fashionable, and self-righteous subset of elites to the group of high-achieving Americans as a whole. He did NOT do a good job convincing me that the bobos have really "taken over" the establishment rather than simply compete for attention with those of other sensibilities. What Brooks does provide is ample evidence that business and the media have in the past decade catered extensively to the bobos' interests -- but merely, in my opinion, because they will always chase after where there is money. He also does a good job of comically and accurately describing the bobos and their habits using his acute powers of observation, but this by itself does nothing for his thesis that the bobos now "rule."
Rating: 
Summary: An enjoyable foray into modern culture and 'demography'
Review: This is an enjoyable book, which takes an amusing look at what you get when you mix sixties pop-culture with eighties mainstream economics culture. Rather than the tortured souls you might expect, you get Bobos! David Brooks examines this phenomenon in a light-hearted, yet affectionate manner.But under the tongue-in-cheek veneer are some important cultural messages. Strip away the $5 bagels and $5,000 shower stalls, and there are people searching for meaning in life (see Erich Fromm's books for a different view on this), because they have a complex mix of cultures behind them that need to be resolved. A critical point is that education matters, possibly above all else. It creates the need for the search, but also enables the search to take place. This book will give you an important insight into the state of the current generation of people well up the tree. It's not highly academic, it's not impersonal and impartial, it doesn't get deeply into the psychology and cultural isses involved. But these aren't weaknesses of the book. This is a first overview of the field. We can expect more material in time, in other forms.
Rating:
Summary: Informative and Fun
Review: If you've ever been to San Franciso or Seattle, you've seen those coffee shops selling All-Natural Sumatran Earth-Grown Kenyan Blend, or those organic supermarkets selling Pete and Katie's Natural Homegrown Ethiopian Peach Sauce. There has been an outburst of upper middle-class and upper class people struggling to unite their bourgeois income with their bohemian upbringing. Not wanting to be like the people their liberal parents grew up hating, they try to remain down-to-earth. The Bobos (Bourgeois Bohemians) are a result of a rebellious time in this country finally coming to an end, and a nation looking for some order and tradition.
This book is extremely well written, and reads smoothly. Lots of fun to read, with strong proof for every claim, both historical, and from interviews. You feel as if you are reading a fun lighthearted article, when really, it is a strongly supported, highly academic piece. Recommend it to everyone, especially if you suspect you might be a BoBo yourself.
Rating:
Summary: breathtakingly funny in parts
Review: I agree with my fellow reviewers who feel that stretches of this book felt s-l-o-w or irrelevent (I tried to rate 3 1/2 stars, but I can't), but when Brooks is on, he's right on. I'd recommend the book for its description of Latte towns and his trip to the REI headquarters -- I was laughing so hard on this last one that I couldn't catch my breath. Seems that many bobos want to dress like they are going out on an artic expedition to go to the supermarket to give them that sense of adventure. Many of my friends and I fit the bobo descriptions, especially the idea of the masochistic vacations that represent a "fantastically expensive way to renounce the flesh in order to purify the spirit." Back to the REI description, he makes fun of the sunglass-clad crowd with glacier glasses "(because you can never tell when a 600 foot mountain of ice might suddenly roll into town, sending off a hazardess glare). Rather than obsess over some of the boring chapters, I'd suggest you read what you find interesting and skim through the other chapters. Brooks is a fun writer, so I found myself reading everything and then wishing I'd skipped a few sections. Despite my criticisms, he had so many sharp observations and witty writing that I highly recommend this book, especially to fellow bobos.
Rating: 
Summary: Entertaining and Occasionally Insightful
Review: Reading through the previous reviews recorded here on this book, I wasn't surprised that some readers loved it, others hated it, and some noted its superficiality while being amused. Brooks' concept of Bobos (Bourgeois Bohemians) is fascinating and at times his observations sparkle, but he is utterly unconvincing when he argues that Bohemian values "rule" in America today. Clearly, Brooks is aware of the view that Bohemian values have been coopted by the corporate establishment and used as a marketing vehicle; but he makes little effort to explain why he rejects this view for one that exhalts the supposed power of people who are too easily stereotyped for eating granola and wearing Birkenstocks. There is much in this book that struck me as wrongheaded--especially when Brooks obsesses on surface-level concerns rather than their deeper meanings, such as the repeated shots he takes at those Bobos who may prefer to buy a hand-woven blanket made in Guatemala rather than a synthetic one manufactured in America. As if this is a matter of great importance. Despite its shortcomings, Brooks' insights make the book well worth a reading--his observations, for example, on Latte Towns, the new morality of Bobos (with its central focus on medical rather than religious injunctions), and the culture of Seattle can be both wickedly funny and insightful. Brooks is the sort of conservative a liberal like me can enjoy. In reviewing the attacks of more strident right-wing commentators, Brooks provides a sensible corrective to the overwrought ravings of the Clinton haters and those conservatives, such as Robert Bork, who descend to self-parody when they reflect on the nightmare of "the Sixties." Brooks's won't be the last word on the subject of those aging, affluent Boomers who exert such power in America today. But this book will be influential and widely read across the ideological spectrum. It's a lot smarter, funnier and more perceptive than much of what has already been written on this generation.
Rating:
Summary: Why they are how they are...
Review: Bobos in Paradise by David Brooks gives readers a look at the characteristics of America's upper class today. He is most concerned with exploring the social changes following the 1950s collapse of the upper class WASP establishment. Brooks writes with plenty of humor making the book more enjoyable while maintaining an intellectual but not highbrow seriousness. The Bobos, according to Brooks, are a social class who embrace both the mainstream culture and the 1960s counterculture, and they represent the current status and future of American social establishment. Bobos are both free-spirited and successful in their careers. They are the new hierarchy who has replaced the WASPs, only the Bobos are more ethnically inclusive and their status is based on merit rather than ancestry. The author derives most of his evidence from observation of the social changes and not from statistical data. David Brooks also considers himself a Bobo, and therefore writes his social commentary from a sort of insider perspective. The critical view of the Bobos is limited in that Brooks doesn't discuss the impact that the Bobos have on the lower classes. While millions of Americans do qualify as Bobos, there are ten times more Americans that do not qualify. Brooks seems to give the impression that with the arrival of the Bobos, all Americans can live a better life because, according the Brooks, it's good to live in a Bobo world. Although Americans may now live in a Bobo world, there is still hardship for those outside of the Bobo upper class. The description of Bobo consumerism may very well be the chief strength of Bobos in Paradise. The portrait of Bobos as it is painted by Brooks is witty, yet at the same time it is sad in that Bobos spend so much money for nonessential items while the poorer classes struggle. The description of Bobo consumerism by David Brooks closely resembles a George Carlin joke. In a fairly recent HBO special, Carlin does a comic bit about how much he hates "parents who carry their kids around in backpacks so that their hands are free to shuffle through high-end merchandise." But this is the Bobos way of life complete with baby backpacks, SUVs, and Starbucks coffee. Essentially, David Brooks gives readers an explanation for why today's elites are how they are. Readers come to understand that it's a mixture of 60s free-spirit mentality with mainstreamed consumerism fueled by the intellectualism of the information age. Brooks studies a society reformed by Bobos culture and not by politics as the WASP class once was. Those who are confused by the consumption of "professional quality" items by those who are not of a corresponding profession (page 89) or the consumption of grossly overpriced items (page 97) would most benefit from and enjoy Bobos in Paradise.
Rating:
Summary: A Funny, Silly, but Seriously Flawed and Misguided Book
Review: If the merit of a book were to be exclusively rated by virtue of readability and entertainment value, then this book is going to be a well-deserved and predictable best-seller. However, if one reads books s to become a more aware, better informed, and intellectually astute citizen, then this is a trite, superficial, and absolutely worthless tome. Like cotton candy, a sweet experience, but almost absolutely devoid of any substantive nutritional content. Brooks admits in the opening chapter that he considers his work an exercise in what he refers to as "comic sociology". Well, at least he got the comic part right. Please don't misunderstand me; he is obviously a talented, perceptive, and entertaining writer, and one finds the text quite readable and easy to follow and absorb. The problem here is that his analysis is too far superficial to be worthwhile. He admits, for example, that he is no Max Weber (a famous turn of the century sociologist and social theorist who was an astute and amazingly prescient critic of modern capitalist culture). Perhaps if he had read Professor Weber more closely (or at all?) he might have recognized the dangers of placing too much stress on one aspect of a complex social envionment and then overemphasizing its importance in the overall scheme of that particular cultural milieiu. This is the theoretical mistake Herr Weber accuses Karl Marx of making with dialetical materialism; mistaking the observable fact of the progressive alienation of workers in 19th century manufacturing factories of being alienated for being the central motive force in history. What Marx didn't recognize, unfortunately, was that all participants in large modern industrial societies are by course of the organization of that society into social institutions ritually expropriated from the means of participation in it. Thus, individuals can express their talents and capabilites only though participation and cooperation with large-scale social institutions (read bureaucracies here). Moreover, this is exactly what Mr. Brooks does, mistaking some colorful and paradoxical symptoms of the critical breakdown in the integrity and cohesiveness of modern society and its accompanying cultural ethos for a new culture ethos itself. Indeed, his choice of books for reference here is telling, all dated in the unusual and historically atypical period of the the Affluent society of the 1950s. He studiously ignores a plethora of more traditional and more recent and relevant monographs, such as "Technopoly", by Neil Postman, "The Power Elite" by C.Wright Mills, and "The Cult of Information" by Theodore Roszak. In essence, Brooks seems amazingly ignorant of the fact that with the rise of a number of related cultural phenomena in the last forty to fifty years, the majority of urban and suburban Americans (especially those who are habitually electronically connected to the media) are deeply confused and disoriented in terms of their cultural orientation. In fact, most Americans feel no cultural constraint to be consistent in terms of what they believe in each of the various aspects of their lives, seeing them as completely disconnected and absolutely independent phenomena. This is, in fact, the end-point of the alienation process predicted by Marx, Weber, and Durkheim long agao, and is often referred to in more recent terms as "individuation", or absolute cultural fragmentation, disintegration and dissipation into irrelevancy. In this manner we can say that these citizens don't have an integrated cultural ethos so much as they have a grab-bag of ideas, opinions, and views that they feel no need to better understand and integrate into anything approaching a coherent and intelligent world -view. The main culprits in this evolution has been 1) the rise and domination of dissemination of public information by the electronic media, 2) the segregation of Americans by virtue of income and lifestyles, and 3) the progressive vitiation of all integration and meaning in our cultural values with the astounding confusion and disintegration of all our social institutions as a result of the ongoing changes associated with the technological revolution. Seen in this way, reading this slim and silly volume is like spending an afternoon watching old Sylvester Stallone movies; entertaining but unconsequential in terms of what one learns from the time so spent. The real danger with watching such movies, of course, is that one may begin to believe that Sly's problem-solving approach as depicted in Rambo is an accurate model for how to conduct one's own life. Here the danger is that too many gullible bozos will read all about bobos and believe it is an accurate depiction of the cutting edge of America's upper class. Shake off the demons, friend, and pass this one by. This book is, in my opinion, silly and specious nonsense written by someone so insulated in his experience and so lacking in socio-historical perspective that he has little or no idea of what he is talking about. No doubt, however that this book will become a smash best-seller and be the talk of the nation for the next several months. I expect to see Mr. Brooks on Oprah any day now. But then again, as our old amigo Arlo Guthrie would say, "That's America". Go figure!
Rating:
Summary: The Flavor of the Times Without Exactitude
Review: David Brooks is a fine writer. I have always enjoyed his articles in the Weekly Standard, the Atlantic Monthly, and currently his column in the New York Times. He is a whimsical observer of American life. His writing has an inductive quality about it. He writes about slate shower stalls, cappuccino bars, eco-tourism, and the like. Pretty soon he has painted a landscape of American cultural trends. In the introduction of "Bobos in Paradise," Brooks describes his method: "The idea is to get at the essence of cultural patterns, getting the flavor of the times without trying to pin it down with meticulous exactitude" (pg 12). In the book with which Brooks will always be associated, he allows us to taste the surprisingly pleasant combination of bourgeois and bohemian cultures. Being a pastor, I was especially interested in reading Brooks' observations on the spiritual life of the bourgeois bohemians. Bobos, according to Brooks, crave "freedom and flexibility on the one hand and the longing for rigor and orthodoxy on the other" (pg 224). Spirituality, like other areas of Bobo life, seems to display itself in utter contradiction. Frankly, the observation rings true. I see the same conflict in the lives of my parishioners. However, the observation rings too true. I wonder if these conflicts are inherent in human nature rather than particularly Bobo nature. Perhaps, Brooks would see the rich young ruler who desired eternal life, yet could not give up his wealth as the first Bobo (Luke 18). Nonetheless, this observation does not distract from the book since Brooks' intention is to make an impression not a necessarily win an argument. The book has one major drawback. Brooks is a master as an author of articles. The book, however, has the feel of several articles strung together. After reading his acknowledgments, I realize that is exactly how the book developed. As a result, the flow is different from chapter to chapter. The reader sometimes has difficulty making the change. If you can suffer the disjointed feel, then you will enjoy a clever perspective of early twenty-first century life.
Rating: 
Summary: Middlebrow Man
Review: A hodgepodge of middlebrow cliches that doesn't know whether it is social commentary or humor; mainly, his thesis is just plain wrong as one could discover by going to Franklin country which Brooks says lacks over $20 meals. I traveled there this past winter to visit some relatives. There one would discover that there are plenty of places to order meals that cost over $20. Strange that his books is filed under "sociology." It is more like humor but one of a condescending kind like Joe Queenan.
Rating:
Summary: Funny but seriously fawed.
Review: Brooks is a breezy and energetic writer who loves to brand name drop ad nauseum. The book is witty and fun to read. But dont expect any edification. Brooks lumps left wing Yale professors who have renounced capitalism and being the same type of bobo as a right wing investment banker, simply because they are both well educated and go to Starbucks. I dont think so.
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