Eating the Dinosaur

After a bestselling and acclaimed diversion into fiction, Chuck Klosterman, author of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, returns to the form in which he s been spectacularly successful with a collection of essays about our consumption of pop culture and sports.

Q: What is this book about?

A: Well, that s difficult to say. I haven t read it yet I ve just picked it up and casually glanced at the back cover. There clearly isn t a plot. I ve heard there s a lot of stuff about time travel in this book, and quite a bit about violence and Garth Brooks and why Germans don t laugh when they re inside grocery stores. Ralph Nader and Ralph Sampson play significant roles. I think there are several pages about Rear Window and college football and Mad Men and why Rivers Cuomo prefers having sex with Asian women. Supposedly there s a chapter outlining all the things the Unabomber was right about, but perhaps I m misinformed.

Q: Is there a larger theme?

A: Oh, something about reality. What is reality, maybe? No, that s not it. Not exactly. I get the sense that most of the core questions dwell on the way media perception constructs a fake reality that ends up becoming more meaningful than whatever actually happened. Also, Lady Gaga.

Q: Should I read this book?

A: Probably. Do you see a clear relationship between the Branch Davidian disaster and the recording of Nirvana s In Utero? Does Barack Obama make you want to drink Pepsi? Does ABBA remind you of AC/DC? If so, you probably don t need to read this book. You probably wrote this book. But I suspect everybody else will totally love it, except for the ones who totally hate it.