Everything is Wrong About Everything, Pretty Much All the Time

Good morning!

I promise all my readers at least one good book recommendation per week, and this is it!

Today’s book is called Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, by the ever-insightful cultural critic, Chuck Klosterman.

It’s a collection of non-fiction essays (hilarious essays, I might add) covering everything from bias in the news, to the thesis that there are very few “original” or “new” personalities out there; rather, there are just waves of people trying to imitate reality TV characters, and personalities from movies.

The essays cover a wide range, including one where he discusses the fact that three of his close friends have known several different serial killers personally(!!!).

You can see where a lesser writer could turn these into fluff pieces, hardly worth your time. But in Klosterman’s hands? Brilliant stuff.

I’ll let you in on some other books I’m enjoying right now, such as The Gift, by the Sufi poet Hafiz, and The Intellectuals and the Masses, by John Carey.

If you’re a boxing fan, also spectacular was The Warrior Monk Philosophy of Trainer Cus D’Amato, by Brett and Kate McKay of The Art of Manliness fame.