Klosterman - Chuck Klosterman IV: a decade of curious people and dangerous ideas

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CONTAINS AN EXCERPT FROM DOWNTOWN OWL , AVAILABLE FROM SCRIBNER

A DECADE OF CURIOUS PEOPLE AND DANGEROUS IDEAS

UPDATED WITH MORE ESSAYS

Klosterman is like the new Hunter S. Thompson. Only its as if Hunter were obsessed with KISS instead of Nixon. People

Chuck Klosterman is the James Bond of pop-culture journalists. San Diego CityBeat

Not unlike Bill Bryson also not unlike Douglas Coupland. Evening Standard (London)

Chuck Klosterman is like the Lawrence Welk of pop culture. The Austin Chronicle

Klostermans critical poetics make him a postmodern Aristotle of the information age. Philadelphia City Paper

This is what Lester Bangs would have written had he been a farmboy raised on a diet of Skid Row and KISS. Kirkus Reviews

Neurotic as Woody Allen, obsessive as Nick Hornby, and as self-conscious as Dave Eggers. The Daily Californian

Klosterman is like pop cultures version of Michael Moore. USA Today

The reigning Kasparov of pop culture wits-matching. San Francisco Chronicle

CHUCK KLOSTERMAN is the author of Eating the Dinosaur; Downtown Owl; Killing Yourself to Live; Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs; and Fargo Rock City. He is a featured columnist for Esquire , a contributor to The New York Times Magazine , and has also written for Spin, The Washington Post, The Guardian , ESPN , and The Believer.

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CHUCK KLOSTERMAN IV

Chuck Klosterman knows an awful lot about pop culture and writes about it awfully well. In truth, none of the stars in this book are more curious than Klosterman himself. He is curious in the sense that he wants to know about people. Mostly, though, Klosterman is worth reading because he is very funny and has a great writing style. He lets his likeable personality inform every word without actually intruding into the story. His persona is based on two seemingly conflicting character typesthe wide-eyed and goofy enthusiast, and the detached and ironic reporter. He melds these two points of view together instinctively, and it really works.

Sunday Herald (U.K.)

No omnivorous critic of American pop culture is more fun than Chuck Klosterman wild, woolly, and delightful.

The Buffalo News

Klosterman steps up with tighter arguments than ever before, while writing passages funny enough to make you stop and read them aloud to whomever is nearby.

The Portland Mercury

Hes pretty much the undisputed king of this sort of thing.

The Tampa Tribune

As keen and clever as ever.

The Onion A.V. Club

Pop cultures new hope.

The Daily Free Press

One of the wittiest and most incisive dissectors of pop culture funny and thought-provoking, few pop-culture commentators are this readable.

Q magazine

KILLING YOURSELF TO LIVE

Sometimes when youre the co-pilot on a road trip, youre having such a good time talking to your buddy, gazing out the window, and listening to awesome music that youre a little reluctant to stop and get out when you actually reach your destination. Thats what reading this book is like.

Entertainment Weekly

Hes killing his artform, in hopes of reviving it.

The Onion A.V. Club

Mr. Klosterman makes good, smart company.

The New York Times

Riveting and poignant, both side-splitting and stirring. Nobody understands identification through pop culture like Chuck Klosterman. Killing Yourself to Live is terribly funny, astute, canny and yet incredibly sensitive. I read it. Then read it again. Chuck Klosterman is a fucking genius.

NOW Magazine (Toronto)

I cant think of a more sheerly likable writer than Chuck Klosterman and his old-fashioned, all-American voice: big-hearted and direct, bright and unironic, optimistic and amiable, self-deprecating and reassuringwith a captivating lack of fuss or pretension. Hes also genuinely funny and I pretty much agree with everything he says.

Bret Easton Ellis

Thank God Chuck lives the life he does and writes the way he writes about it. Its not just autobiography; its a vital form of truth, and hes the real thing.

Douglas Coupland

SEX, DRUGS, AND COCOA PUFFS

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs stands out as one of the brightest pieces of pop analysis to appear this century.

The Onion A.V. Club

You really should check out this book. A

Entertainment Weekly

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs will make you question your most dearly held beliefs about popular culture.

Playboy

Its quintessential Klosterman, sometimes exasperating but almost always engaging.

GQ

Dude, this rules!!!

People

Maddeningly smart and funny.

The Washington Post

Chuck Klosterman has the time and inclination to think through the issues that you didnt even know were issues. Laugh at him, or with him, or both but you will laugh, dammit, you will laugh.

Bob Odenkirk

FARGO ROCK CITY

Writing about American pop culture doesnt get any better than this, or any funnier, or any more readable. If you love rock n roll, you will love Fargo Rock City .

Stephen King

You NEED to read this book. This man is a great writer and the book is not just about hair metal bands but about how it feels, how music feels, how media-saturated culture feels, and how its all in the details.

David Byrne

To read about and realize the effect of metal in Americas heartland is really cool twelve years after it happened, and I am very grateful to Mr. Klosterman for capturing the moment with such clarity.

Sebastian Bach

Its easily the most implausible (and the most comically agile) piece of wildcat criticism Ive come across in years.

Dwight Garner, The New York Times Book Review

The best music book ever to cause me to spend not one red cent shopping for new CDs, an unusual bargain. But whether or not you take the bait and undertake a massive reconsideration of Ratt, Poison, Def Leppard, and their ilk, youll glimpse your lonely hearted and dreamy teenage self in Klostermans confessions.

Jonathan Lethem, Crawdaddy

The Great Gatsby of heavy-metal literature.

Rolling Stone

ALSO BY CHUCK KLOSTERMAN

Fargo Rock City:

A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural Nrth Dakta

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs:

A Low Culture Manifesto

Killing Yourself to Live:

85% of a True Story

Downtown Owl:

A Novel

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Copyright 2006, 2007 by Chuck Klosterman

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First Scribner trade paperback edition July 2007

Portions of this work reprinted with permission from SPIN magazine and the Akron Beacon Journal , all rights reserved. Portions of this work originally appeared in Esquire , The Forum of Fargo-Moorhead, The New York Times Magazine , and ESPN the Magazine . Mannequin Appropriation Project first appeared in the April 2005 issue of The Believer magazine.

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