From Powells.com
Staff Pick
This is one of the most interesting and thought-provoking books I've read in a long time. It is an analysis of the present from some point in the distant future that asks which authors, artists, and musicians from this era will be remembered and respected hundreds of years from now. Recommended By Shawn D., Powells.com
At the start of his seventh nonfiction book, Chuck Klosterman makes clear (twice) that his new work is "not a collection of essays." While But What If We're Wrong? alights on a number of disparate subjects, it functions best as a unified idea. Exploring books, music, space/time, gravity, science, dreams, conspiracy theories, television, sports, democracy, and government, Klosterman imagines not only what our future may well look like, but how it is we can even go about conceiving of what it may look like, given that not only have past prognostications been so wrong, but also that our collective imaginings seldom even ask the right questions.
Klosterman doesn't offer any answers, per se, but does provide interesting ways to think about the future, situating what we currently know against what we cannot yet know that we don't know. Like a thought experiment writ large, But What If We're Wrong? provides intriguing observations (subjectively purveyed), making for a frequently fascinating read. Employing the use of interviews with George Saunders, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene, Kathryn Schulz, Junot Díaz, Richard Linklater, David Byrne, and others, Klosterman solicits the educated opinions of acknowledged leaders in their respected fields to see if they might have a sense of what's to come. With abundant humor, incisive thinking, and a devil's advocacy approach to future possibilities, But What If We're Wrong? provides an entertaining, exciting exercise in what future decades and centuries may hold in store. Recommended By Jeremy G., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
We live in a culture of casual certitude. This has always been the case, no matter how often that certainty has failed. Though no generation believes there’s nothing left to learn, every generation unconsciously assumes that what has already been defined and accepted is (probably) pretty close to how reality will be viewed in perpetuity. And then, of course, time passes. Ideas shift. Opinions invert. What once seemed reasonable eventually becomes absurd, replaced by modern perspectives that feel even more irrefutable and secure—until, of course, they don’t.
But What If We’re Wrong? visualizes the contemporary world as it will appear to those who’ll perceive it as the distant past. Chuck Klosterman asks questions that are profound in their simplicity: How certain are we about our understanding of gravity? How certain are we about our understanding of time? What will be the defining memory of rock music, five hundred years from today? How seriously should we view the content of our dreams? How seriously should we view the content of television? Are all sports destined for extinction? Is it possible that the greatest artist of our era is currently unknown (or—weirder still—widely known, but entirely disrespected)? Is it possible that we “overrate” democracy? And perhaps most disturbing, is it possible that we’ve reached the end of knowledge?
Kinetically slingshotting through a broad spectrum of objective and subjective problems, But What If We’re Wrong? is built on interviews with a variety of creative thinkers—George Saunders, David Byrne, Jonathan Lethem, Kathryn Schulz, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene, Junot Díaz, Amanda Petrusich, Ryan Adams, Nick Bostrom, Dan Carlin, and Richard Linklater, among others—interwoven with the type of high-wire humor and nontraditional analysis only Klosterman would dare to attempt. It’s a seemingly impossible achievement: a book about the things we cannot know, explained as if we did. It’s about how we live now, once "now" has become 'then."
Review
"[But What If We’re Wrong is] full of intelligence and insights, as the author gleefully turns ideas upside down to better understand them…. This book will become a popular book club selection because it makes readers think. Replete with lots of nifty, whimsical footnotes, this clever, speculative book challenges our beliefs with jocularity and perspicacity." Kirkus Reviews
Review
"This book is brilliant and addictively readable. It’s also mandatory reading for anyone who loves history and for anyone who claims to have a capacity for forecasting. It’ll probably make them angry because it turns so many sacred assumptions upside down—but that’s what the future does. Klosterman’s writing style is direct, highly personal and robotically crisp—he’s like a stranger on the seat next to you on a plane who gives you a billion dollar idea. A terrific book." Douglas Coupland
Review
"A spin class for the brain… Klosterman challenges readers to reexamine the stability of basic concepts, and in doing so broadens our perspectives…. An engaging and entertaining workout for the mind led by one of today’s funniest and most thought-provoking writers." Library Journal (Starred Review)
About the Author
Chuck Klosterman is the bestselling author of seven nonfiction books (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. Klosterman is a native of North Dakota and currently lives in Brooklyn with his wife, Entertainment Weekly TV critic Melissa Maerz.
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...
Read More»