I hadn't yet taken the time to write anything about the prominent authors who have died recently, but I can't bring myself to write about them in the same post, as they didn't get along with one another.  So, Tom Wolfe first.

I read A Man in Full when it came out in 1998.  That's back when big releases were major news and got the cover of weekly news magazines.  There was much press for that book, so I bought it and read it.  I didn't spend much money on hardcover books back then in my poor grad school days.  I went to pull my copy off of  the shelf, but it doesn't appear to be there (I don't remember getting rid of it).  

What I remember most from that novel was a chapter in which one of the characters was just having one of those classically bad days and how this connected to an exploration of Stoicism.

I also read Bonfire of the Vanities after that and long after its period of great popularity.  Both are big, bold stories that reveal details of the times and locations in which they are set.