Cannonball Read 18

Sticking It to Cancer One Book at a Time


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Hey Hey, My My, Rock and Roll Will Never Die

Rock*: A Mainstream Alternative History of Alternative Mainstream Music by Chuck Klosterman

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Seemingly inspired by the trite music critic observation that The Velvet Underground & Nico only sold 10,000 copies but all 10,000 of those people went out and started a band, Chuck Klosterman’s new novel Rock*: A Mainstream Alternative History of Alternative Mainstream Music imagines that music history (and world history) took a different path. What if The Velvet Underground had become the most popular band in the world, instead of The Beatles? How might that change in taste have reverberated throughout the culture? And how might […]

Ancient History

The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman

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If you were writing an American History textbook you might be tempted to skip from the fall of the Berlin Wall to the September 11 attacks with just a few brief pitstops along the way. Even as they were happening the Nineties tended to feel less consequential than other eras, and in the years since there was been less nostalgia for them than many other decades. But of course there is always a lot going on, in politics, in art, in technology and science, and […]

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The Nineties by Chuck Klosterman

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Earlier this year I reviewed Cyberville, Stacy Horn’s recounting of starting an online community in 1990s New York. That got me on a 90s entertainment kick in music, movies, and other books. (To be honest, I’m always on a 90s kick in music.) Klosterman’s The Nineties was an obvious followup read. While a lot of my pop culture interests are Chuck Klosterman-adjacent, this was the first time I’ve read one of his books. If his other reads are like this one, I’ll put them on […]

This book almost killed me. Literally.

Killing Yourself to Live: 85% of a True Story by Chuck Klosterman

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So, the book itself didn’t actually almost kill me- as much as it tried to do- but I just finished this audio book while driving home from work (yay essential workforce) on a highway that was not, in the slightest, plowed. I have been a New Englander my entire life. I like driving in the snow. I am confident, competent, and careful. This was the worst drive I have ever had- no hyperbole. A tractor trailer blew by me (only one lane, mind you) and […]

But what if the pony’s trick is really cool?

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I’ll pretty much read whatever Chuck Klosterman puts out.  I know what I’m getting, it’s pop culture cake with highbrow frosting, but dammit, who doesn’t like cake? It’s also not as easy to pull off as even Klosterman himself joked in Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs by giving the formula for writing his pieces. Many seemed to take that as a recipe rather than a joke; I’m thinking particularly of cannonball nine book club selection Life Goes Pretty Fast, you can’t just overthink pop culture […]

“Life is rarely about what happened; it’s mostly about what we think happened.”

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I was a little torn on rating this book, because I really liked a few of the essays, kind of hated a couple, and felt indifferent towards most of the rest. My indifference, however, stemmed mostly from the fact that Klosterman’s pop culture world runs about 5 to 10 years ahead of mine, so much of what he discusses feeling fervently about as a 20 something, I totally missed out on as a pre-teen. But I’m going with 3 stars, because if I could never muster the energy […]



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