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Staff Pick
Reading Chuck Klosterman is reminiscent of getting a beer with an excited friend who listens to a lot more music than you do. In this collection of articles and essays, Chuck explores Kobe Bryant's work ethic; why he'll never read Harry Potter; and why everyone seems to hate Nickelback. A fun ride through our media-driven culture, I highly recommend this title to anyone who is into fantasy sports, or anyone who reads musician Wikipedia pages regularly. Recommended By Connor M., Powells.com
No one writes pop culture quite like Chuck Klosterman, and this collection of essays he's published throughout the past decade is a must-read for his fans. Even when I'm not enamored of his subjects, I'm always enthralled by his writing, and this is a great book to read in bits and pieces when you need to think about something a little less serious. Recommended By Ashleigh B., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
New York Times-bestselling author and cultural critic Chuck Klosterman compiles and contextualizes the best of his articles and essays from the past decade.
Chuck Klosterman has created an incomparable body of work in books, magazines, newspapers, and on the Web. His writing spans the realms of culture and sports, while also addressing interpersonal issues, social quandaries, and ethical boundaries. Klosterman has written nine previous books, helped found and establish Grantland, served as the New York Times Magazine Ethicist, worked on film and television productions, and contributed profiles and essays to outlets such as GQ, Esquire, Billboard, The A.V. Club, and The Guardian.
Chuck Klosterman’s tenth book (aka Chuck Klosterman X) collects his most intriguing of those pieces, accompanied by fresh introductions and new footnotes throughout. Klosterman presents many of the articles in their original form, featuring previously unpublished passages and digressions. Subjects include Breaking Bad, Lou Reed, zombies, KISS, Jimmy Page, Stephen Malkmus, steroids, Mountain Dew, Chinese Democracy, The Beatles, Jonathan Franzen, Taylor Swift, Tim Tebow, Kobe Bryant, Usain Bolt, Eddie Van Halen, Charlie Brown, the Cleveland Browns, and many more cultural figures and pop phenomena. This is a tour of the past decade from one of the sharpest and most prolific observers of our unusual times.
Review
"A collection of journalistic pieces that remain provocative…offers insight into the relations among artist, art, and audience that goes considerably deeper [and] will leave readers with fresh appreciation for both the subjects and the journalist." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"Highly entertaining…honest, unpredictable, and fun…addictively readable…surprisingly poignant." June Sawyers, Booklist
About the Author
Chuck Klosterman is the bestselling author of seven books of nonfiction (including Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs and I Wear the Black Hat) and two novels (Downtown Owl and The Visible Man). He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ, Esquire, Spin, The Guardian, The Believer, Billboard, The A.V. Club, and ESPN. Klosterman served as the Ethicist for The New York Times Magazine for three years, appeared as himself in the LCD Soundsystem documentary Shut Up and Play the Hits, and was an original founder of the website Grantland with Bill Simmons.
Chuck Klosterman on PowellsBooks.Blog
That’s what good writing is, I think: style, tone, tempo, and clarity. The ability to construct an exceptionally beautiful sentence is impressive, but also secondary to the overall goal, which is to propel the reader to consume whatever sentence comes next...
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