look to the west

27 July 2000

The Silicon Valley consumes the media and manufactures the glittery dust of our wildest imaginations. Within its invisible valley walls, unlike any other place in this world, a unique intersection of life and work gave birth to an entirely new culture and frame of mind. Nothing I've read so far has captured it snapshot-for-dramatic-snapshot better than Po Bronson's The Nudist on the Late Shift. In devoting each chapter to a different cog in the hi-tech wheel: the entrepreneur, the programmer, the futurist, the dreamer, Bronson winds a gripping path around the larger story of this new rush to the West. These true tales, candy-coated with enough literary spin to keep fiction-enthusiasts amused, will entertain, educate, and inspire.