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

by Chuck Klosterman

Coming off the breakthrough success of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs and Killing Yourself to Live , bestselling pop culture guru Chuck Klosterman assembles his best work previously unavailable in book form—including the groundbreaking 1996 piece about his chicken McNuggets experiment, his uncensored profile of Britney Spears, and a previously unpublished short story—all recontextualized in Chuck’s unique voice with new intros, outros, segues, and masterful footnotes.

Chuck Klosterman IV consists of three parts:

Things That Are True—Profiles and trend stories: Britney Spears, Radiohead, Billy Joel, Metallica, Val Kilmer, Bono, Wilco, the White Stripes, Steve Nash, Morrissey, Robert Plant—all with new introductions and footnotes.

Things That Might Be True—Opinions and theories on everything from monogamy to pirates to robots to super people to guilt, and (of course) Advancement—all with new hypothetical questions and footnotes.

Something That Isn’t True At All—This is old fiction. There’s a new introduction, but no footnotes. Well, there’s a footnote in the introduction, but none in the story.

Genres: Nonfiction, Essays, Pop Culture, Music, Humor, Journalism, Cultural

416 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Charles John Klosterman is an American author and essayist whose work focuses on American popular culture. He has been a columnist for Esquire and ESPN.com and wrote "The Ethicist" column for The New York Times Magazine. Klosterman is the author of twelve books, including two novels and the essay collection Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs: A Low Culture Manifesto. He was awarded the ASCAP Deems Taylor award for music criticism in 2002.

Reviews

[Madeline · Rating 4 out of 5]

I first learned about Chuck Klosterman through my friend, who is a nonfiction writer and swears by his essay collections. Klosterman is primarily a music writer (imagine Lester Bangs if he had grown up in the golden age of hair metal) and most of the writings featured here are from Spin and Esquire. The collection is framed as a retrospective, with Klosterman introducing pieces by commenting on how his views have changed by then, or why he now hates the article he's about to share (he even includes articles on the Fargo rock scene that he wrote when he was twenty-three, and he's appropriately embarrassed about it). The include celebrity profiles, "Best Of" lists, what-if scenarios, and musings on VH1 Classics and the Olympics. At their best, his essays blend pop culture and philosophy seamlessly - the book is worth it just for the article detailing the time Klosterman met Britney Spears and tried to unravel the mystery of who she actually is vs. who she pretends to be ("After I spent my time with Spears, people kept asking me, 'What is she really like?' My answer was usually, 'I don't know, and I don't think she does, either.'").

I'll be the first to admit that my music tastes are not very refined, so it was sort of a relief to see Klosterman writing almost exclusively about bands that I had actually heard of. He writes most frequently about bands he grew up listening to in the 80's, but there are also some fascinating profiles of The White Stripes and Radiohead ("Everyone in this band reads more than you do; hanging out with Radiohead is kind of like getting high with a bunch of librarians."). I was worried that Klosterman would turn out to be a music snob, and he sort of is, but for the most part, he presents his love of pop music frankly and matter-of-factly, and I always appreciate someone who acknowledges that popular culture becomes popular because lots of people like it, and that's not a bad thing. His revelation (helped by Wilco's Jeff Tweedy) that he actually kind of likes Jet is great:

"Now, nearly everybody I know thinks Jet is ridiculous; they've become the band hipsters are legally required to hate. So I made some joke (and I have no idea why) about how Jet was terrible and that it was somehow predictable that the only people who would want to cover Jet songs would be second graders. Tweedy didn't understand why I would say something like that. He looked at me like I had just made fun of a quadriplegic and asked, 'Well, don't you like rock music?' And then I felt stupid, because I realized that (a) Jet plays rock music, and that (b) I like rock music, and that (c) I actually liked Jet, both tangibly and intangibly. So that was something I realized about Jeff Tweedy: musically, he remembers what is obvious."

Another great example of Chuck Klosterman's refreshing lack of musical snobbery:

"I've probably written more about tribute bands than any sensible man should. I really like them, though. Tribute bands often reflect what I like about rock n' roll more than the authentic bands they replicate."

(this passage comes at the beginning of a piece about all-female cover bands with names like AC/DShe and Lez Zeppelin, and it is fantastic)

The only rough patch is at the end, when Klosterman includes an excerpt from a book that he tried to write when he was a reporter for a newspaper in Akron, and I suspect he included it for the dual purpose of proving how unashamed he is by what a terrible writer he used to be, and the hope that someone would tell him it's actually very good.

Overall, a great collection of essays that are in-depth and thoughtful enough for hardcore fans, and frank and approachable enough for the casual reader.

[RandomAnthony · Rating 2 out of 5]

So Gus says Klosterman’s IV reads like a B-side collection, and I see the analogy, but I’d say Gaiman’s Fragile Things seems more like a B-side collection than IV. If I had to stretch the musical analogy I’d say IV reads more like a singles assortment until the last section (at which point I’d have to drop the musical recording analogy or stretch said analogy to ridiculous lengths).

Does IV function as a stand-alone text? I don’t know. I don’t think so. I’ve read all of Klosterman’s book-length works so I can’t help but contextualize IV around his previous publications. I’d recommend either Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs or the exuberant (for, uh, guys raised on heavy metal in particular) Fargo Rock City for new readers. IV consists of musical profiles (U2, Radiohead, White Stripes) and other Klosterman ruminations the author wrote for Spin, Esquire, etc. And the selections read as if they were never intended for a lifespan longer than a couple weeks on the coffee table or bathroom shelf. I mean, they’re not that great, but they’re better than most of the crap you encounter in Spin and Esquire. So is that a ringing endorsement? Of course not. “Better than most of the crap you encounter in Spin and Esquire? would not be a high-quality back-of-the-book blurb. But I have to give Klosterman credit for churning out decent-quality screeds month after month at a rate substantial enough to warrant a cash-in paperback between “real” books. He leans on his standard “turn things upside down” analysis and 4AM barroom debate logic more often than not, but if the utilization of those two rhetorical tools are a skill, well, nobody of whom I aware writing for magazines embodies that skill better than Klosterman.

This review fails to acknowledge, by the way, the last forty pages, a work of fiction so unfinished that I’d rather pretend it’s not there.

If you’re a Klosterman fan you’ll recognize his voice throughout IV but probably want to return to his other books for the high-quality fix. This one is for completists only, like that singles collection with a couple new songs you’re really not sure you want to buy when you’ve already heard most of the tracks before.

[Steven · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love Klosterman, I know others don’t, but I do.

Premises from IV that made me think:

- Brittney Spears is either brilliant or a moron in not understanding her role in perpetuating the Madonna/whore dichotomy.
- U2 might be genuine, they might be full of it, but they understand the concept that as long as they make money they can do whatever the heck it is they want.
- You can eat McNuggets for a week and it likely won’t kill you, despite what the movie “Supersize Me’ Might say.
- The line “corporate responsibility begins when corporations start breaking the law and personal responsibility never stops” is devastatingly accurate.
- Goth kids really aren’t scary and they like Disneyland too.
- Radiohead (and most (not all) of the people who think they’re brilliant) generally tend to bit pretentious jerks. That goes double for Thom Yorke.
- Armed revolution is likely extinct in this country. How do you revolt against and what the heck are your changes of success.
- Michael Stipe is very full of himself and also overrated.
- People are fooled into thinking Radiohead are brilliant by their lyrics, which are meaningless blank slates that allow you to place whatever meaning (why Bush is evil or your girlfriend doesn’t love you) you want upon them.
- Jeff Tweedy and Wilco are awesome, though I like Uncle Tupelo and Son Volt more.
- Billy Joel does not get the critical acclaim he so rightly craves. He is also a hopeless romantic and believes very much in the redemptive power of love.
- Choice makes us happy in the short term, but sadder in the long term because it robs of shared experiences.
- Klosterman’s essay on Barry Bonds is the best there is and I love his analogy to Bonds in this era as similar to Ali in the 1960s and Seabiscuit in the 1930s.
- There is a difference between an enemy and a nemesis and we need both.
- Val Kilmer is awesome (though pretentious) and very underrated. He feels he knows what it’s like to be Jim Morrison more than Jim Morrison does - now that’s method acting.
- The term “guilty Pleasure” makes no sense. There is no reason to feel guilty about liking “Road House,” “Thriller,” or gumballs.
- Any rock star can tell you that being with 1 woman 1000 times is way more interesting that being with 1000 different women.
- It is better to be a pirate than a chump.
- Culture is never wrong. Just because Nirvana is better than Limp Bizkit doesn’t mean that Limp Bizkit’s success means we are losing.
- In order to be with a beautiful woman for dorky looking guys, it is better to pick one that is already taken and not one that it single. With a single woman, you have to be better than all the people pursuing her, with a taken woman, you only have to be better than the person she is currently with. Breaking-up starts with the idea that modern society makes monogamy nearly impossible.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

as my friend sigurdur hilmarsson always says, "one data point is only a point; two points is a line."

when i read _sex, drugs and cocoa puffs_ -- the conventionally-wise "best klosterman book" -- i couldn't discern what troubled me about his blend of hyper-citation, extreme pop-cultural literacy, and equal-opportunity satire. these are all attributes i usually admire, if not over-value.

on the second go-round, i realized that klosterman is more a pop culture comedian than critic -- at any juncture he will opt for facile humor over analytical consistency. klosterman's musings are undoubtedly riotous, and i would challenge anyone reading him to get through an essay without laughing out loud. but like the cocoa puffs klosterman is wont to deconstruct, there is something delicious but profoundly empty about his critiques.

in the service of immediate comedic gratification, klosterman will often make a hilarious point -- usually characterized by an unpredictable analogy (the US as the Wonder Years' Kevin Arnold, e.g.) -- only to directly contradict it in subsequent essays. in short, klosterman is a hilarious writer for whom nothing, including his own critical consistency, is sacred; he has nothing like a real point of view.

that being said, IV is hilarious, and not only because it apes/mocks/salutes (these lines are always blurred with klosterman) zeppelin's semi-eponymous, semi-numerical _zoso_ album in appearance and structure. broken into three parts -- "things that are true" [interviews and profiles from his journalistic career]; "things that might be true" [speculative essays in the _s,d,cp_ vein]; and "something that isn't true at all" [a misguided attempt at fiction] -- IV provides a good range for klosterman newbies. i would argue that one should read _IV_ before _s,d,cp_.

essentially a retrospective of klosterman's published work over the last decade, IV ranges in quality, from a hilarious profile of a paranoid and ingratiating val kilmer to a lame assessment, originally published in _spin_, of how zeppelin is the wellspring for all subsequent metal genres to speculation on why we are overprepared for a robot war that will never occur and that we would easily win.

though this review is somewhat critical, klosterman is essential reading for anyone with even a passing interest in pop culture.

[Stephanie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I usually like Klosterman’s work— Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs and The Nineties both smart and fun to read. But this one just didn’t do it for me. A lot of the essays felt like rambling for the sake of sounding deep, and I kept waiting for some of them to go somewhere… but they never really did.

There were a few interesting moments, but not enough to keep me engaged. It felt more like wading through overthought monologues than reading something insightful. Just not my favorite from him.

[Winter Branch · Rating 3 out of 5]

Things that are true:
Anyone who has read Klosterman’s IV will understand the following statement: Klosterman has become a guilty pleasure of mine. I receive enjoyment from his writings, yet feel guilty for liking them. Too often he comes off as smug and formulaic. I think that is what’s so problematic about his writing. The condescending nature of his writings isn’t always enjoyable. Especially in his interview-centered pieces, he comes of sounding like a record-store-clerk-snob or any other person that takes the “I listen to music or I read books that are better than yours” mantra. Even though Klosterman is dipping into some of the lower elements of pop culture and digging out something meaningful and important about them, in the end a lot his essays seem insincere and elitist. He might be honestly trying to validate certain elements of popular culture that most would simply write off but usually it just ends up reading like ridicule and comedy at others’ expense.

Yet, despite these complaints I read on! I have already started Killing Yourself to Live and I’m enjoying it. I enjoy many things about Klosterman, including his essays about Super Size Me and culture (the need for people to like what you like). Given the dated nature of his pieces though, the most appropriate medium for his writing are probably magazines and blogs. But since I’m not willing to track those type of things down regularly, I’ll have to settle for his books and deal with the fact that many of the things he mentions might no longer be relevant or even remembered.

[Aaron Gertler · Rating 4 out of 5]

Update: Five years later, some of this has aged poorly (especially Klosterman's creepy interview with Britney Spears). Still a 4/5, but no longer the kind of thing I see myself taking the time to reread. This podcast is full of hilarious Klosterman put-downs if you dislike him (or would consider re-evaluating him).

* * *

I like music, but I don't especially like the music Chuck Klosterman writes about.

Nevertheless, I would read Chuck Klosterman write about more or less anything. He is very funny, down-to-earth, and a clever philosopher who genuinely seems to think he isn't as clever as he really is.

It's hard for me to review this book in particular, since his essays all sort of blend together in a pleasant way. He spends much of IV hanging out with bands, which is nice, because any band who hangs out with Chuck Klosterman is going to come out of the experience sounding funny and clever and down-to-earth. I liked Wilco and Radiohead more after reading Klosterman's take on them. I like everything more after reading Klosterman's take on it.

Recommended for: People who like the world already or want to like it more. Also, you should probably listen to music sometimes.

[Glen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of columns Klosterman wrote mostly for Rolling Stone Magazine. It's very self important for such ephemera, but that's the very nature of Rolling Stone.

The most glaring thing I found is that the vast majority of celebrities mentioned, nobody cares about any more. Isn't it a relief not to have to care about Britney Spears? How many people even noticed she faded away?

As shallow as one would expect, but occasionally penetrating.

[Joseph · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ok, after reading two of his essay books, I think I've finally figured this Klosterman guy out and why he is equal parts interesting/infuriating. I think most of the controversy and/or confusion results from the fact that he's a good writer but a shallow thinker. He can bullshit with the best of 'em and keep you breezing along through a piece until you get to the end and realize he hasn't told you a goddamn thing you didn't already know. Not to say there's not gems here - I loved the pieces on Billy Joel and Barry Bonds, but overall there's more smoke than fire.

Also, part of me certainly agrees with his skepticism that there is such a thing as objective taste and what notions of such that exist are mostly attempts to establish some kind of intellectual class structure (sort of an accessible Bourdieu, if you will). However, another more surface part of me can't help but be disturbed that his favorite band is Kiss and his favorite working actor is Val Kilmer. Plus the one short story included sucks HARD.

[Oriana · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was nervous about reading this because (see below), I checked GR before I bought it & everyone seemed to think it was one of his worst. But this being actually the first Klosterman I've ever read, it proved not to be a problem, since I had nothing to compare it to. I quite enjoyed moving very slowly through this book. The essays are mostly good, in a big-budget, mildly corny, mildly sycophantic kind of way. I do wonder how one becomes Chuck Klosterman, some seemingly doofy dude who gets to hang out with all manner of pop culture's biggest stars like it ain't no thang. And I'm not saying any of it was particularly earth-shattering or whatever, but in tiny bites over several weeks, it was a very pleasant diversion. I even liked the short story at the end, more or less.

Added bonus: reading this made it it so easy to decide what music to listen to each day. With practically every essay, I was like, "Oh my god, Radiohead / The Feelies / Uncle Tupelo / Lez Zeppelin! I completely forgot about / always meant to listen to that band!"

pre-read: Can you seriously look at how awesome this cover is? I bought this on a (presumably ill-advised) whim at the Strand recently, 90% because of the cover, and 10% because I've never read him before and always assumed I'd get around to it some day. Anyway, I call the whim ill-advised because even though I could not stop being excited about the cover, I did check GR on my phone before buying, and it looks like everyone kind of hates this one. My paltry defense is that the disdain seems to be that this is just a collection of outtakes from his better works, and since I haven't read the good ones, maybe I won't notice that this pales in comparison. Anyway, at least it should be a good balance for Winesburg, Ohio, which, though tiny, is proving to be very slow going.

[Laura Noggle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable, entertaining and sometimes funny three stars.

Felt very dated though.

[Brenton Crozier]

Only Chuck can lend credibility and meaning to the seemingly inconsequential pillars of pop culture. And he's a nerd, like me!

[Jessica · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book started off great, but as it progressed became more and more tedious and self-indulgent.

[Dolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very dated, but still entertaining collection of stories by Chuck Klosterman. I found his humor to be a bit too sarcastic for my taste.

He may have grown up in rural North Dakota and spent a lot of time in Ohio, but his writing seems to have a New York City-kind of street smarts that I, as a small town girl, find a bit acerbic.

[Jim Beatty · Rating 3 out of 5]

'Gusty winds may exist.' This seems more like lazy philosophy than travel advise.

[Benoit Lelièvre · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perhaps it is not important for you to read about early XXIst century rock stars and world events, especially if you didn't live through that era and/or remember what anyone mentioned in this book brought to culture.

But it's a lot of fun. The most fun I have reading books usually comes from Klosterman.

IV is the first "collection of oldies" type of book he released, which consists mainly in musician portraits that apperead in Spin and columns for Esquire. There's also a 36 pages novella at the end, which I never brought myself to read in its entirety.

The most important thing about IV is the most important thing there is about Chuck Klosterman: the subject doesn't really matter and the voice sort of doesn't either (it does, but it doesn't). It's a thought process that is fun and intellectually engaging, first and foremost. That's why many people love Chuck Klosterman, but can't explain why. What makes him "him" is amorphous to what he's talking about.

This is best exemplified in the essay Cultural Betrayal, where he discusses... well, the very contemporary feeling of being betrayed by culture. His example is Sex and the City, but it's easily transferable to Game of Thrones. Sure, the writing was a little contrived and pressed by financial high stakes but getting angry and demanding "a better" ending will not result in a better ending. It will result in a convoluted can of worms, which fans will fight over for decades. Everybody had their own opinion of how Game of Thrones should've ended and any ending was bound not to satisfy fans who were just desperate for their show to go on.

IV is very much a Klosterman 201 kind of thing. It's a completist endeavor, but it's also easier to understand if you've live through the era he so thoughtfully chronicles.

[Pat · Rating 4 out of 5]

Got a free copy of this at a book fair. It softbound edition and they guy running the booth was looking at me funny - "you sure you don't want that nice hard back copy of the new John LeCarre?". Well, actually I wanted them both, but he didn't offer. Maybe he had to lug a hard copy back to NY.

I on the other hand put Klosterman IV in my carry on and almost finished it on the plane coming home. It's that kind of book. Perfect for air travel.

Here's why Klosterman is an excellent writer. There were several pieces in this collection that I read over the last decade before I knew who he was but remembered clearly. When I discovered them included in this anthology of magazine writing it all made sense. For example, I don't think I've had a serious conversation about Billy Joel (they can happen) without referencing Klosterman's article from the NY Times magazine about him and BJ bumping around the Hamptons and BJ bemoaning the fact that he can't find a girlfriend. There were a few pieces like that in here. I think he's fun and his pieces stick with me.

[Sam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was the most entertaining book I've read in a while. The story at the very end - again, entertaining, but nothing more than entertaining. This is gonna sound weird, but I felt ripped off at the end of the story. But this isn't a book of stories, it's a book of essays and profiles. Those = fantastic.

[bamlinden · Rating 3 out of 5]

I can see why he called his book IV....the first part of the book was really enjoyable (I’m in that perfect demographic), the second part was pretty good, the third part was “what the hell am I reading” and now the fourth part is me trying to figure out what the heck just happened.

I’ve not read and Chuck Klosterman books previously but have enjoyed his analysis and contributions to a number of sports and pop culture documentaries. I was excited to jump into a book that I had no previous interest in reading and it started off great.

Kenwood Dotzenrod.....fantastic. So was the article on Britney Spears, Metallica, U2 and numerous others. I enjoyed the crafty injection of humour and tact that made the writings sing. Really well done.

The second part of the book I had a tougher time with. Moments of laugh out loud funny but more instances of “what the hell am I reading”. Good...but not to the level of the fist part of the book I read.

The last part of the book.....I am still trying to figure it out. It’s some sort of novella that just creates this self-deprecating vibe. Again, moments of laugh out loud funny but more often I was trying to figure out... you guessed it... “what the hell am I reading”.

I’m still not sure how I feel about the book as a whole. It just kind of makes no sense to package all of these writings together. But maybe Chuck Klosterman has a one up on me. Whatever it is, I can safely say that I didn’t hate the book, nor did I love it. He gets neither a big gold star nor a giant red X.

What more can be said.

[Melissa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every few years, I forget how I feel about Chuck Klosterman, so I read a new Chuck Klosterman book and then about a quarter way through the book I remember why it is that I haven’t read all of Chuck Klosterman’s books by now. I am interested in the subject matter that Chuck Klosterman writes about (pop culture and sports) but I am not one bit interested in Chuck Klosterman as an average human male thinking his opinion is marvellous and important.

I enjoyed the first section of this book, “Things That Are True.” The section is a compilation of some featured pieces he has written for publications about famous musical groups (e.g. U2, Radiohead) and celebrities (e.g. Val Kilmer). Reading this section was enjoyable. Things started going downhill after this section.

Something new I picked up from this book is that I just realized that I think Chuck Klosterman also hates women. The last section of this book, “Something That Isn’t True At All,” he writes a fictional story about a man that works as a reporter (he gives us a brief description of his workplace where he only analyzes the female coworkers) and hits a woman with his car (and feels absolutely no remorse for it) and asks his girlfriend (that he hates) to pick him up and bring him home. No thanks! I skimmed over most of this story but since it was the last few pages of the book, I just wanted to get through it so I could mark this book as Read.

[Kailyn · Rating 3 out of 5]

Let's start by saying I like all the stuff I've read by Chuck Klosterman. I think his pop culture knowledge is incredible. He has generally interesting opinions and insights into things I would never think about. But something about this collection of essays felt like a slog. They just didn't hold my attention as much as I hoped. The best part I thought were the little hypothetical questions that separated the essays in the Things that Might Be True section.

[Serena]

Technically I did not finish because the final section of this book is fiction; and I am definitely not interested in Chuck Klosterman's fiction. This is the most insufferable Klosterman book I've read so far.

[Morgan]

Good read, but a lot of the first half didn't age very well. A lot of old pop culture & breakdowns of news from 2004. Still plenty of good sections, but don't be afraid to skim other parts.

[Julie · Rating 2 out of 5]

I feel like this would have appealed to me more if I were a guy.

[Ravi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I don’t know why I took an almost 20 year break from reading Klosterman books. Really enjoyed this and his writing

[Emma Lane · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5. when I die, reincarnate me as a mildly hardened & depressed rock-loving gen x man

[emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

there were parts i really liked and parts that i just could not force myself to be interested by. the good bits were really good, and i learned a lot about people i didn’t know much about before. the not so good bits were draining to read. lots of footnotes.

[Ville Verkkapuro]

Fun stuff, clever writing, warm social and culture criticism. Very dated, something to expect. Social media really destroyed this kind of writing, but whatever.

[Trunk Slamchest · Rating 4 out of 5]

I shall start off my review by stating this one fact: I love Chuck Klosterman. I really do. I recommend him to anyone that will lend an ear. Sex, Drugs, And Cocoa Puffs is one my absolute favorite books EVAR. So forgive me if my review of Chuck Klosterman IV (who's title is a reference to the classic, untitled fourth Zeppelin album) seems a tad less than impartial. You now know why. IV is a collection of stories, essays, and a single piece of short fiction that Chuck has done for various publications, including Spin and Esquire. The first portion of the book is a collection of profiles on artists and other people of note. In this section, we discover that Chuck was once told by several psychics that he was supposed to be a professional bowler, that he once lost a pound on the Chicken McNugget Diet (it ties in to an interview he later did with Supersize Me documentarian Morgan Spurlock), and what he considers the worst conversation of his professional career (hint: the interviewee has been known to seek and destroy). While this section is by no means bad, it is certainly the weakest part of the book. I occasionally found myself struggling to get through this portion of the book, although I concede that this may have to do with the fact that I can only take so many artist profiles at once (it's why a single issue of Decibel magazine can last me until the next one comes out). Next is the essay portion of the book. It consists of stories on things such as VH1 Classic, the difference between nemeses and archenemies, and why Johnny Carson was the last ubiquitous figure of popular culture. This is, far and away, my favorite part of the book. The stories here are examples of why I hold Klosterman up as the greatest pop culture writer of all time. The story on the time he watched VH1 Classic for 24 hours straight is a classic, as is his story on the modern day Pirate renaissance. The 3rd and final section of the book is a short piece of fiction he wrote about an amoral (okay, maybe not amoral, but damn close), PCP addled newspaper movie critic who, while driving to pick a friend's sister, has a woman land on his car. Like, she just falls out of the sky. This is somewhere between the profiles and the articles. I mean, it's really good, but not as earth-shatteringly great as the articles. What I really love about this piece is how Klosterman pulls a Tarantino and makes a PCP-addicted, rather narcissistic dude completely relatable, at least to me (but then again, I related to Michael Keaton's character in Pacific Heights more than I related to the "good guys" of the film). Also, the major event of the story is regarded with what's almost a sense of normalcy. Like, it doesn't really happen until later in the story, and it's done with such realism, one begins to suspect that Klosterman has actually had this happen to him once, which an angle I really appreciate. Most authors would take this from the angle of "OMG A WOMAN FELL FROM THE SKY OMGOMG!!1!11", but Klosterman realizes that the reader already realizes that what transpires in the story is rather extraordinary, so he doesn't really need to push it.
Overall, this book deserves about a 4.5, but friggin' Goodreads won't allow half points. Argghh. Score normalcy irritates me. So, the final score is Chuck Klosterman IV: 4.5, Goodreads: 2. Take THAT, you lousy website.

[Matt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really loved this book, probably because I fit the exact demographic it was written for: grew up with '80's and '90's rock, love sarcasm, and am a book geek. Anyway, this has a really cool layout: the first half (titled "Things That are True") is a collection of interviews, mainly with actors and musicians who were important 10 years ago (when this was published). Instead of feeling "dated," it actually makes it more interesting that so much has changed since these interviews took place. I really liked reading what these figures thought was/would be most important, and comparing it to what has actually taken place in their own lives and in the world. The second half is all essays ("Things That May be True"). Great stuff! I dog eared lots of pages that made me think. Like all great essayists, Klosterman has a unique perspective on the world. Since Klosterman makes a living as a critic, I especially appreciated part three ("Things That Are Not True At All"). This is just a short story that he wrote. It's good but not great, but how cool is it to have a professional critic open himself up to criticism of his own original work?