Klosterman - Sex, drugs and cocoa puffs: a low culture manifesto

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

Contains excerpts from DOWNTOWN OWL and EATING THE DINOSAUR

Maddeningly smart and funny... [Klostermans] good humor, compassion, and raw associative powers put him in the same league as Nick Hornby and Douglas Coupland, though hes a more tenacious critic than either.

THE WASHINGTON POST

Countless writers and artists have spoken for a generation, but no one has done it quite like Chuck Klosterman. With an exhaustive knowledge of popular culture and an almost effortless ability to spin brilliant prose out of unlikely subject matter, Klosterman attacks the entire spectrum of postmodern America: reality TV, Internet porn, Pamela Anderson, literary Jesus freaks, and the real difference between apples and oranges (of which there is none). And dont even get him started on his love life and the whole Harry-Met-Sally situation.

Whether deconstructing Saved by the Bell episodes or the artistic legacy of Billy Joel, the symbolic importance of The Empire Strikes Back or the Celtics /Lakers rivalry, Chuck will make you think, hell make you laugh, and hell drive you insane usually all at once. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is ostensibly about art, entertainment, infotainment, sports, politics, and kittens, butreallyits about us. All of us. As Klosterman realizes late at night, in the moment before he falls asleep, In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever in and of itself. Read to believe.

CHUCK KLOSTERMAN is the author of Eating the Dinosaur, Downtown Owl, Chuck Klosterman IV, Killing Yourself to Live, 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 .

Quintessential Klostermansometimes exasperating but almost always engaging.

GQ

The reigning Kasparov of pop culture wits-matching.

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

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COVER DESIGN BY PAUL SAHRE AND ROGIER KLOMP

COVER PHOTOGRAPH BY MICHAEL NORTHRUP

Praise for Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs

Damn funny a wild collection of bracingly intelligent essays about topics that arent quite as intelligent as [Klosterman] is.

Esquire

You really should check out this book. A (Editors Choice)

Entertainment Weekly

Dude, this rules!!!

People

[Klosterman] will make you question your most dearly held beliefs about popular culture.

Playboy

Klostermans pop-culture appetite is like that of a hungry trucker at a Sizzler salad bar. Its his very voraciousness that gives him an aura of ex cathedra authority. Hes John Ruskin for the Sid and Marty Krofft generation. Hes perfect junk food for the soul.

Los Angeles Times Book Review

Snort-out-loud funny. [Klosterman] is a clever fellow, cracker-jack observer, and dazzling writer.

The Charlotte Observer

Wickedly funny.

The Philadelphia Inquirer

Klosterman is like pop cultures version of Michael Moore, a zealot who simultaneously amuses and provokes. Savvy and insightful.

USA Today

Hilarious, yet also profound. Klosterman [is] a social critic, not just a pop-culture one, worth following.

The Denver Post

Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs makes a persuasive case that even seemingly forgettable bits of pop culture resonate more deeply than anyone ever thought they would.

The Hartford Courant

Its far from a puff piece.

National Post (Canada)

Klosterman has written a book that deftly skewers Americans dysfunctional love affair with everything and anyone famous. Sometimes provocative, sometimes insightful, and almost always very funny.

The Columbus Dispatch

Ass-kicking and entirely non-sucking Klosterman embodies all that is good about populist intellectuals.

Colorado Springs Independent

In the era of information overload, here, assuredly, is its popcult poet laureate, a practitioner of cult crit so wayward, so eccentric, so brilliant, and with his head buried so deeply up his own fundament, that, in a world purring contentedly in its own myopia, he seems to be able to see for miles and miles. [Klosterman is] one of the essential living American critics at this moment.

The Buffalo News

Klosterman is an unparalleled chronicler of the Zeitgeistnot to mention his obvious awareness for what is truly a well-balanced breakfast.

Philadelphia City Paper

Klosterman exhibits a disturbingly thorough understanding of contemporary cultural phenomena. Part oratorical rant and part comical critique, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is filled with irresistible observations about the trivial everyday subjects that shape and reflect our lives, encouraging us to think elevated thoughts while keeping our minds in the gutter.

Nerve.com

Klosterman [is] thoughtful, witty, and insightful about subjects most writers would dismiss as brainless, witless, and shallow.

The Tampa Tribune

[This is] pop culture dissected with a razor-sharp wit in hilariously obsessive detail.

Rockford Register Star

Chuck Klosterman is an incredibly talented yarn-spinner. He knows so well how to build a story and wring out its punchline and significance that youd think he was raised by an ancient tribe of oral historians.

mediabistro.com

ALSO BY CHUCK KLOSTERMAN

Fargo Rock City: A Heavy Metal Odyssey in Rural Nrth Dakta

Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story

Chuck Klosterman IV: A Decade of Curious People and Dangerous Ideas

Downtown Owl: A Novel

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Copyright 2003, 2004 by Chuck Klosterman

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.

33 was previously published in a different form in GQ . Appetite for Replication was previously published in a different form in The New York Times Magazine .

First Scribner trade paperback edition 2004

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