Rating:   Summary: A hilarious satire Review: Lanham's tome of cool is more than a mere handbook.... it is the most well-written and hilarious bit of social commentary to be published in recent memory. He nails the paradoxes and nuances of today's trendsetters and allows their absurdity to speak for itself. This book is a real treat.
  Rating:   Summary: completely deck, & oh so fun Review: Let's face it, you either know you're a hipster, or have a sneaking inclination that you really aren't. In which case you might think that the true hipster has no use for this book, and the fin non-hipster type can only use this book to wallow in misery or make an attempt at imitating godliness.while the second statement may be true...the first is definitely not, and all across the board this handbook is both hilarious and highly insightful. true it stereotypes and classifies the hipster kind, but i have definitely noticed the subcategories before...though i, as a unique hipster, cannot be pinned into one category.  with fabulous lists of worthy music (david bowie, etc), hipster hotties, and a section devoted to dating hipsters, this is truly a well-researched book. it's got completely deck (in layman's terms: cool) illustrations and even an "are you a hipster?" quiz for those who aren't quite sure. It's all you need. my only qualm with the handbook is the claim that ravers are hipsters..i'm not so sure about that one.
  Rating:   Summary: Hipsters are deck Review: Not only is this book hilarious, but it is accurate. Hipsters are everywhere and Lanham captures their absurd paradoxes and nuances in perfect detail. The illustrations are fun and plentiful and add to the overall effect of the book. Forget The Preppy Handbook, this one is more funny!
  Rating:   Summary: once you write about it... Review: Okay, it's funny but once you write about it, it's not deck, it's over. If you're really hip, you'd read it at a friends house while they take a shower, or in a bookstore...but you wouldn't buy it. And if someone gives it to you as a gift, you're dope, and not in the street kinda way.
  Rating:   Summary: Lanham's Joke Review: Only recently, through a series of 'revealing' literary works, has the greater American public been made aware of the well-dressed, foppish, socially progressive, and supremely emasculated urban crowd known as metrosexuals. The existance of men who would rather spend a day at the beauty parlor than the ball field has come as a shock to every beer-guzzling frat boy who could not, for all the gold in fort knox, envision a world in which fashion savvy and unparalleled narcissism are more useful masculine traits than a strong physique and the ability to consume mass quantites of alcohol.  Treading similar ground, Robert Lanham's Hipster Handbook attempts to sate the masses by allowing a fleeting glimpse into an ever changing subculture indigenous to the metropolises of America. Lanham's opus manages to act simultaneously as both a (relatively) accurate satire of progressive urban life, as well as a guide by which one could, conceivably, become a hipster him(or her) self.  It is because of the janus-faced nature of the Handbook that nobody in America could actually take it seriously. On the one hand, Lanham would have us buy into his view that what he sees reflects the true nature of the hipster, while at the same time, he relentlessly parodies such a lifestyle, making it clear to the reader that very few Americans indeed could ever come close to living it. Proof: Lanham makes perfectly lucid the notion that, while a 9-5 job is considered utterly 'fin,' hipsters should possess the wealth necessary for the fast-paced, fashionable, trendy world of hipsterdom. The occasional waitressing shift at your local hipster bar will not pay for your Wicker Park loft, nor will it buy your Manhattan Portage messenger bag, your collection of Kraftwerks and Built To Spill CDs, or your Structure jeans.  This leads us to an important conclusion: Lanham did not write the Handbook for practical use. Although reading it cover to cover will reveal excellent music suggestions, a few fashion tips and some ridiculous hairstyles, deciding to enter the hipster scene by way of the Handbook would be a faux-pas of legendary proportions.  The previous paragraph should lead readers who chastised the book for its' 'how-to' quality to reconsider their scathing reviews; Lanham did not write the Handbook to teach SUV drivers and beer-bonging homophobes how to be socially conscious and modern. Rather, his amusing observations on this small corner of society are meant to reinforce the irony of such a lifestyle, but also to impress upon the rest of America that, contrary to traditional notions, and at a time where the word conservative is as pertinent as ever, it is quickly become ok- and perhaps even the norm in cities- to be distinctly progressive. Which brings me back to the beginning; Hipsters and Metrosexuals are completely 21st century entities, both revered and ridiculed by the public at large. Lanham realized this, and so he wrote and marketed his book the only way he could: accessable and factual for the layman, but insightful and witty for the urban intellectual. Nobody truly comes out a winner, and no great insights are produced, but everybody feels like they understand a little better, and society as a whole is the wiser for it.
  Rating:   Summary: Moderately interesting waste of time.... Review: opinion: If you have a couple of hours to kill the book is not all bad. Pretty funny, but overall just not of interest to me.
  Rating:   Summary: Feel Hipper at Parties! Review: Parties filled with youthful, slender, and carelessly tousled hipsters used to make me feel like a hairy, balding, four-corned frado that tracked dog-doo across their flocati rugs. Well, The HIPSTER HANDBOOK has changed all that! Now, friendly nods and phone numbers from lovely chippers flow my way. And the hipsters at the coffee bar put extra fudge in my mocha now that I'm part of the tribe. Go from Huey Lewis to Julian Casablancas in 140-some pages, and if reading's not your bucket of chicken, there are over 100 fly illustrations that'll get you going down the road to carefree hipsterdom. If it worked for me, it can work for you. BUY THIS BOOK.
  Rating:   Summary: Very hip Review: Sarcastic and right on the nose. Those who are truly "too hip" probably will hate this 'cause they'll think they're being goofed on. And guess what? They are! Overtly mocks those who try so hard to be different, but in the process act like lemmings. Two other funny, sarcastic books you may also enjoy: NO ONE'S EVEN BLEEDING and DELANO
  Rating:   Summary: I'm so fin I'm deck! Review: So here I am dressed as fin as imaginable in my tie-die shirt and the test at the end of the book tells me I'm deck. The test came out more accurately for my husband pointing him out for for the poseur that he is. The illustrations are best part of the book and the most boring bits have to be the lengthy explanations of the various types of hipsters. By about the third one I just started skipping through these sections.
  Rating:   Summary: Inspired, hilarious stuff! Review: So what if this doesn't appeal to everyone? Not everyone has the good taste and the inflated ego to be a hipster!  The best thing about this book and the reason it succeeds so well, I think, lies in the fact that Lanham understands how silly this project is, which makes it absolutely fun to read.  And if you are a hipster like me, you'll really appreciate the Hipster Hairdos for Men and Women, which include such common styles as the Emo Combover and the Wet Banana.  Also great are the lists that examine Hipster Music. There really is a logic to them: David Bowie's "Hunky Dory," for instance. Lanham wouldn't pick "Ziggy Stardust" for the simple fact that it's too well-known...Hipster's always seek the obscure stuff. So if you enjoy poking fun at yourself and your lame friends, I recommend this one.
 
 
   
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