book data
172 ratings, 3.54 average rating, 10 reviews
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published
October 5th 1999
by Bantam
binding
Paperback, 304 pages
isbn
0553380613
(isbn13: 9780553380613)
description
<DIV>Tom Wolfe's second collection (1968) takes it title from a redoubtable surfing elite, many of whom abandoned the beach for the psychedelic ...more
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other reviews (showing 1-20 of 237)
Read in December, 2007
Trying to get in the spirit of visiting Southern California, where I am clearly a stranger in a strange land, I decided to pick up The Pump House Gang at a bookstore in La Jolla, mere steps from where the title essay is set.
That essay is not only ingenious but should be (and in many cases, is) required reading for would-be feature writers. There are also brilliant, if now dated, vignettes about the lives of celebrities, like Hugh Hefner and Marshall McLuhan, and the unsung, like two rags-to-ri...more
That essay is not only ingenious but should be (and in many cases, is) required reading for would-be feature writers. There are also brilliant, if now dated, vignettes about the lives of celebrities, like Hugh Hefner and Marshall McLuhan, and the unsung, like two rags-to-ri...more
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Read in February, 2007
recommends it for:
die-hard Tom Wolfe fans
My edition is way older than this, but this was the only one with a picture. The previous owner unfortunately underlined heavily and inserted helpful margin comments throughout ("GREAT!!!!!"). I read this book, along with basically the entire Tom Wolfe ouevre (excluding things I had already read or had of yet to be published) my freshman year of college, I decided to re-read it mostly I guess because the title vignette is about La Jolla in the '60s. Unfortunately, it doesn't really hol...more
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Read in July, 2008
this essay collection is excellent, covering figures who have achieved status levels outside of the mainstream social hierarchy. his subjects are rascally surfer kids, strippers, and the O.G. of creepy old men, hugh hefner. i think tom wolfe is getting pretty annoying in his old age, but this (written shortly after kool-aid) is one of his finest, in my opinion.
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Read in July, 1994
recommends it for:
Sixties fans
My favorite Tom Wolfe book. Selected subjects include pieces on West Coast surfers, British mods (Noonday Underground), Hugh Hefner, weekend bikers, stripper Carol Doda, Marshall McLuhan and more demented Wolfe sketches that predate old Ralph Steadman by a hoot-owl's age. Highly recommended.
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Tom Wolfe is up to his usualy social criticizms in The Pump House Gang. Mr. Wolfe and his ever present white suit head to California and dig into the "surfer" style that exists, almost exclusively on the California Coast.
Tom Wolfe, if you keep writing, I'll keep reading.
Tom Wolfe, if you keep writing, I'll keep reading.
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I thought I was going to wet myself laughing at this book. Even so, it is a most interesting look at American culture in the 60's. I should re-read Wolfe's stuff to see if it has dated.
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recommends it for:
Daydreamers of surfing.
This was a real treat.
Surfer youth in La Jolla,
Hugh Hefner's strange living,
Topless waitresses,
and...hey waita minute...
oh yeah, that was in this one.
Surfer youth in La Jolla,
Hugh Hefner's strange living,
Topless waitresses,
and...hey waita minute...
oh yeah, that was in this one.
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