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On Paradise Drive
How We Live Now (And Always Have) In The Future Tense
by David Brooks
The author of the acclaimed bestseller "Bobos in Paradise," which hilariously described the upscale American culture, takes a witty look at how being American shapes us, and how America's suburban civilization will shape the world's future. [Simon & Schuster]
Simon & Schuster, 352 pages
06/2004
$25.00
ISBN: 0743227387
Nonfiction
Social Sciences
All reviews are classified as one of five grades: Outstanding (4 points), Favorable (3), Mixed (2), Unfavorable (1) and Terrible (0). To calculate the Metascore, we divide total points achieved by the total points possible (i.e., 4 x the number of reviews), with the resulting percentage (multiplied by 100) being the Metascore. Learn more...
Christian Science Monitor Jeff McCrehan
A tour of the American psyche and its myriad manifestations of some considerable and satisfying force.
Entertainment Weekly Jennifer Reese
Brooks' style is so easygoing and his observations so wicked and astute...that you won't be able to stop reading. Or laughing.
Kirkus Reviews
From a cuddly conservative: a genial ode to America that only a snooty French deconstructionist could fail to find amusing and enlightening.
Library Journal Lori Carabello
He thoughtfully constructs a critique of American middleclass suburban culture while entertaining the reader with clever, laugh-out-loud observations (it's Jerry Seinfeld meets Modern American Sociology 101). [15 May 2004, p.104]
Los Angeles Times Chris Suellentrop
An occasionally hilarious, mildly repetitive, but ultimately pleasurable read that will be persuasive only to people who already agree with [him].
New York Observer Baz Dreisinger
Engaging, consistently entertaining and occasionally schizophrenic: In his sweeping assessment of that creature known as "the American," Mr. Brooks pokes with one hand and pats with another.
Booklist David Pitt
Along with exposing cultural absurdities, [Brooks] offers acute observations on middle-class life, and he frequently takes us in previously unexplored philosophical directions. [15 May 2004, p.1582]
The New York Times Joyce Maynard
You get the sense, reading Mr. Brooks (as I believe you do watching Mr. Moore in action), that despite his devastatingly keen ability to skewer so much of what goes on in America, at some fundamental level he has affection and respect for so-called ordinary Americans.
Wall Street Journal James Q. Wilson
Funny and perceptive. His brand of comedy is like that of all truly amusing people. He does not tell jokes; instead, he describes things in amusing ways, usually to make a point.
The New York Times Book Review Michael Kinsley
At the very least, Brooks does not let the sociology get in the way of the shtick, and he wields a mean shoehorn when he needs the theory to fit the joke.
New York Review Of Books Andrew Hacker
That Brooks largely ignores their political sentiments suggests that he has not defined his subjects very clearly or come to know them closely.
Publishers Weekly
While engagingly written and insightful at points, Brooks's affirmation is unlikely to resound with anyone outside the conservative choir, and even less likely to spark change.
Salon Laura Miller
The ideal format for Brooks' wit is the 1,000-word column, a length ideally suited to a riff on the psychosexual symbology of outdoor grills, the future market for play-date attorneys or the rituals of the business traveler. String a bunch of these riffs together and you get ... a bunch of riffs strung together.
The Nation Nicholas Von Hoffman
Whereas Twain on the warpath was a sharpshooting rifleman and Mencken laid about with the broadsword, Brooks's literary weapon is the tweezers. Follicle by follicle, he snaps the hairs out. Painful but not so entertaining.
The New Republic Nicholas Lemann
Feels hasty, stitched-together, under-researched.
Boston Globe Bill Beuttler
The satire, for the most part, is annoyingly ham-handed compared with the subtler, funnier stuff in ''Bobos"
Washington Post Timothy Noah
In my characteristically American way, I see a worthwhile book coming out of David Brooks sometime in the future. But On Paradise Drive is a disappointment.
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