Critic Reviews
Great
Based on 6 reviews on
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 Klosterman presents many of the articles in their original form, featuring previously unpublished passages and digressions.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.
"Infectious.... Though Klosterman may be pigeonholed as a guy who thinks too much about Kiss, his 10th book shows he's something else: a philosopher." --Justin Wm. Moyer, The Washington Post
"Klosterman is a master of the high-low...He injects a level of intellectual rigor into subjects that receive precious little...With X, Klosterman wallows in the trivial...but he's not trivializing...proving that culture essays can teach us something about ourselves and the people around us...Each of his essays is a love letter to a moment." --B. David Zarley, Paste
"Chuck Klosterman has become a cultural observer of our time. Klosterman roams the junk drawer we call popular culture, providing shockingly keen insight into how our absorption of culture reflects on us." --Jim McLauchlin, Los Angeles Times
"A hilarious new essay collection...by this brilliant writer... His great gift as a writer is his ability to take the 'inflexibly personal' and make it true." --Ann Levin, The Associated Press
"Highly entertaining...honest, unpredictable, and fun...addictively readable...surprisingly poignant." --June Sawyers, Booklist
"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