The Purple Decades: A Reader

Before he became a best-selling novelist (The Bonfire of the Vanities), Tom Wolfe was an essayist and keen observer of 1960s and 1970s culture for Esquire and Rolling Stone. (This is the man who coined the phrase "Me Decade", after all.) This ear-candy collection of 20 essays and articles narrated by Edoardo Ballerini was handpicked by Wolfe and includes some of his best-known nonfiction work. These must-listens include profiles of astronaut Chuck Yeager (who also appears in Wolfe's The Right Stuff) and model-turned-Warhol-superstar Baby Jane Holzer. Part cultural anthropologist and part social observer, Wolfe conquers the worlds of modern art, high fashion, surfing, and stock-car racing with equal aplomb.