Before The Right Stuff, Wolfe published this collection of his unique essays, enhanced with his biting illustrations. Whether word or line, his pen is wickedly clever and embarrassingly insightful. His piece in this collection on aircraft carrier pilots, "The Truest Sport: Jousting with Sam and Charlie," is clearly the precursor to his block-buster account of the Apollo astronauts. Wolfe has always had the perfect eye for the right stuff, and has been decades ahead of his times, as he is obviously and ironically well-aware, judging from his illustrated essay "The Man Who Always Peaked Too Soon." From Bauhaus to candy-colored tangerine-flake hand-crafted hot-rods, to hippy glitterati on the Magic Bus, to hot-shot pilots, Wolfe's word-pictures are always perfectly ahead of his and our times.

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