The failure of The Encyclopedia of Guilty Pleasures is its never-explained premise, which is that there are certain things we’re just supposed to inherently feel shame about. For example, I have absolutely no idea why anyone would be ashamed to like Evel Knievel (page 144); he is an iconic symbol from a specific period of Americana, and he serves as a metaphor for what a lot of people valued in 1976. He also broke thirty-five bones, went to jail for beating a man with a baseball bat, and consciously named himself Evel. He’s not cool in a guilty context; he’s cool in every context. This book
...more
