**An instant New York Times bestseller!“Informative, endlessly entertaining.”—BuzzFeed“Generation X’s definitive chronicler of culture.”—GQFrom the author of But What If We’re Wrong comes an insightful, funny reckoning with a pivotal decade**It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while anothe...

**THE INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER“Could this be the best book on football ever?” —Tyler Cowen"Another masterwork from one of our greatest minds.” —Esquire“[An] essential playoff-season read.” —PeopleA hilarious but nonetheless groundbreaking contribution to the argument about which force shapes American life the most. For two kinds of readers—those who know it’s football and those who are about to find out.**Chuck Klo...

Microdoses of the straight dope, stories so true they had to be wrapped in fiction for our own protection, from the best-selling author of But What if We're Wrong?A man flying first class discovers a puma in the lavatory. A new coach of a small-town Oklahoma high school football team installs an offense comprised of only one, very special, play. A man explains to the police why he told the employee of his local bodega that his colleague looked like the lea...

Kaleidoscopic culture critic Chuck Klosterman rewrites the history of reality, built off a question that has never been asked or (in all likelihood) even considered: What if Phillip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle was actually about rock music?The Velvet Underground & Nico was released in the spring of 1967. For decades, the cliche has been that it initially only sold 10,000 copies, though everyone who bought it suppo...

For 6,557 miles, from New York to Mississippi to Seattle, Chuck Klosterman decided to chase rock n roll and death across a continent. 21 days later, after three relationships, an encounter with various cottonmouth snakes, and a night spent snorting cocaine in a graveyard, Klosterman started to order his thoughts on American culture and the meaning of celebrity.

Chuck Klosterman has become the pop culture commentator of his time. Now, our favourite popular phenomenon offers new introductions, outros, segues, and footnotes around a collection sure to enlarge his following. Chuck Klosterman IV is divided into three parts:Part I: Things That Are True showcases Chuck's best profiles and trend stories from the past decade. Billy Joel, Metallica, Val Kilmer, U2, Radiohead, Wilco, The White Stripes, Steve Nash, 50 cent - they're all here, complet...

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 – ...

With an exhaustive knowledge of popular culture and an effortless ability to spin brilliant prose out of unlikely subject matter, Klosterman attacks the entire spectrum of postmodern America: reality TV, Internet porn, breakfast cereal, serial killers, Pamela Anderson, literary Jesus freaks, and the real difference between apples and oranges (of which there is none). Sex, Drugs and Coca Puffs is ostensibly about movies, sport, television, music, books, video games and kittens, but really i...

**An instant New York Times bestseller!“Informative, endlessly entertaining.”—BuzzFeed“Generation X’s definitive chronicler of culture.”—GQFrom the author of But What If We’re Wrong comes an insightful, funny reckoning with a pivotal decade**It was long ago, but not as long as it seems: The Berlin Wall fell and the Twin Towers collapsed. In between, one presidential election was allegedly decided by Ross Perot while anothe...

From the author of the highly acclaimed heavy metal memoir, Fargo Rock City, comes another hilarious and discerning take on massively popular culture—set in Chuck Klosterman’s den and your own—covering everything from the effect of John Cusack flicks to the crucial role of breakfast cereal to the awesome power of the Dixie Chicks.Countless writers and artists have spoken for a generation, but no one has done it quite like Chuck Klosterman. With an exhausti...

He’s been called a journeyman. Even Paul wouldn’t dispute that classification. Regardless, Bill Simmons, ESPN’s “The Sports Guy,” has said of Paul Shirley, “We could finally have an answer to the question ‘What would it be like if one of our friends was an NBA player?”There’s no denying that Paul Shirley is the closest thing pro basketball’s got to Odysseus. In Homeric fashion, he has logged time practically everywhere in the roundball universe, from six NBA cities to pro leagues i...

After a bestselling and acclaimed diversion into fiction, Chuck Klosterman, author of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, returns to the form in which he’s been spectacularly successful with a collection of essays about our consumption of pop culture and sports.Q: What is this book about?A: Well, that’s difficult to say. I haven’t read it yet—I’ve just picked it up and casually glanced at the back cover. There clearly isn’t a plot. I’ve heard there’s a lo...