AUTHOR & NEW YORK TIMES COLUMNIST

David Brooks has a gift for bringing audiences face to face with the spirit of our times with humor, insight and quiet passion. He is a keen observer of the American way of life and a savvy analyst of present-day politics and foreign affairs.

He holds several prestigious positions as a commentator:

Bi-weekly Op-Ed columnist for The New York Times
Regular analyst on NewsHour with Jim Lehrer and NPR’s All Things Considered

Author of two books of what he calls "comic sociology"—descriptions of how we live and "the water we swim in" that are as witty and entertaining as they are revealing and insightful: Bobos in Paradise and On Paradise Drive. Bobos in Paradise was a New York Times bestseller.

David Brooks has worked at The Weekly Standard, joining the magazine at its inception and serving as senior editor. He has been a contributing editor at Newsweek and the Atlantic Monthly. He worked at The Wall Street Journal for nine years in a range of positions, including op-ed editor. He has written for The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, Forbes, The Washington Post and many other periodicals.

The Books

Bobos in Paradise : The New Upper Class and How They Got There

In his bestselling work of "comic sociology," David Brooks coins a new word, Bobo, to describe today's upper class—those who have wed the bourgeois world of capitalist enterprise to the hippie values of the bohemian counterculture. Their hybrid lifestyle is the atmosphere we breathe, and in this witty and serious look at the cultural consequences of the information age, David Brooks has defined a new generation.

On Paradise Drive : How We Live Now (And Always Have) in the Future Tense

What is life really like in today’s middle- and upper-middle-class suburbs? What is it about being American that drives us so hard to relentlessly move and labor and change? And are we as shallow as we look? In On Paradise Drive, David probes to see if down beneath the surface activities of everyday life there is a grand, complicated and deeply American idealism that inspires not only the shallow strivings but noble ones, as well. Few commentators have David’s flair for painting the American social landscape with such color and comic insight.

Credentials

• Op-Ed Columnist, The New York Times
• Weekly political commentator, NewsHour with Jim Lehrer
• Regular commentator on NPR
• Former writer, editor or columnist for Wall Street Journal, Atlantic Monthly, Newsweek and The Weekly Standard and other major print media