Eating the Dinosaur is a collection of essays written by Chuck Klosterman. Klosterman is an author who's work I had been more or less avoiding for the last few years. His name always seemed to pop up in articles and on websites that I liked, but I always found the praise of his work to be a bit fawning and his responses in interviews to be a bit off-putting (which sorta comes up in one of the book's first essays). Though, in the end, I quite enjoyed the book and found his essays both entertaining and interesting (even the ones about sports). Topics discussed in the book include: journalism, the similarities between Kurt Cobain and David Koresh, basketball, voyeurism, time travel, Garth Brooks' alter ego Chris Gaines, football, ABBA, laugh tracks, Pepsi's advertising strategies, irony, literalism, the lyrics of Rivers Cuomo, and a critique of the Unabomber Manifesto. Rating: 89%
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3 comments:
I've never read any Chuck Klosterman, but I bet if I met him he would be way too cool to talk to me. I've heard he's a good writer though.
Like I said in the review, I had put off reading his stuff for a long time because of his hipper-than-thou image, but I picked up Eating the Dinosaur at Wal-Mart last week because (just like Blockade Billy) it was 30% off. I enjoyed it and will likely read more of his stuff in the future.
Having read, uh, all of Chuck Klosterman's books - I'd highly recommend Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. The essays are better there. I liked SDCP the most, then IV, then Eating the Dinosuar, then his two first books which weren't as strong.
Also, I recommend staying away from his fiction, as I kind of hated it.
And, he wasn't too cool to talk to Sarah at a book signing, so there's that.
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