Rating: 
Summary: Repetitive, Arrogant, Racist, Sexist, Uninformed, Shallow
Review: Chuck Klosterman, unlike most people *celebrates* his lack of insight. There is nothing ironic about the subtitle, "A Low Culture Manifesto".
What he tries to do / does:
* He tries to examine pop-culture phenomena (any piece of trash that trickled its way to him) in a 'postmodern' light or in a 'philosophy for shallow people' way - except if submitted for a college assignment, he would fail (because of plagiarism). There are no new ideas: It is a rehash of a particularly bad reading of ideas put fort by Baudrillard (about 30 years before Chuck wrote this book) and other culture theorists (post modern or not). It is quite formulaic: Throw in references to 'authentic' crap of later half american pop culture, mix it with punch-line pseudo-pseudo-intellectual 'philosophy', swear around, make sex/drug jokes, finish essay (not nec. in that order)
* ...or he simply lauds certain trash, for no good reason apart from "I like it, it is not cool, it is not even uncool, hence it is great, so I like it". He is pride of being an edgy, authentic hick, of being uncool, and shallow. Admitting, or being pride of mediocrity is used as an excuse, and justification, for his utter lack of insight.
*He also comments on women (girls, chicks, and more - he has a particularly well-developed vocabulary of 'bad' terms for women) and is somewhat proud of his unjustified, ignorant sexism. He announced that no woman will ever satisy him (as if that is what women are for, satisfying men, thanks for letting us know, Chuck). He is somewhat obsessed with little girls, little boys, and little children in general, bordering on the pathological, which is very disturbing.
Conclusion
It is not even funny. It is a complete waste of your time and money. If you enjoy watching thousands of hours of reality TV, this book is just for you. It is not a manifesto of low culture, it is not even low culture, the book is just parasitic, insincere. The author is not only conceited, but is one of the most profoundly dumb writers I've ever read. Read at your own risk.
Rating: 
Summary: caveat reader
Review: Face it... you'll love this book or hate it... unless you can enjoy it for what it is and then disgard of it immediately after... then you'll be as ambivalent as I am about this title.
Readers who enjoy it: you are vapid and so deeply immersed in pop culture and self un-aware that you are to be parodied for your complete identification w/ this work (the author himself would... and does--thus, the true meaning underlying the subtitle).
Readers who deplore it: you are justified in your distaste of it... but only if you are so serious about yourself that you lose sight of what it is you are reading in the first place. CK is acutely aware of all of Cocoa Puffs's shortcomings, and, should he lazy unenough and unoriginal enough (which of course, he is), he could easily come out with a new printing w/ an afterword entitled: Mistakes We Knew We Were Making... In short, either stick to Being and Time or shut up a get a sense of humor... and don't act like you didn't live through the experiences that make up CK's subject matter.
This is Reality Bites: A Ten Year Retrospective... CK is so completely consumed w/ being ironical that he often forgets that life really can be deeper and more significance than an existential inquiry into Saved by the Bell... Still, I'd being lying if I said that I didn't laugh out loud consistently during the first 100pps...
Rating:
Summary: Started out TERRIFIC, but I steadily lost interest...
Review: Glad this was a collection of essays, rather than a novel. I don't think I would have been able to make it through a novel of this type of writing. Also made it easy to read while on the pot.The essays start out with brilliance (especially the first two, about romance and The Sims, respectively), but my interest in them fizzled out. There are a few bright points here and there in the remaining essays (the essay about serial killers and our fascination with them is dead on). There is no doubt Klosterman is an adept writer, can pinpoint emotions, and locate intermittently with a witty finger the pulse of certain social issues (like what the hell tribute bands are all about and WHY). But the tone in which he does so is sometimes reminiscent of...how shall I put it? A smart-ass thirty-year-old who thinks he is very clever with his observations, and justifies it by saying he is a Gen X'er and entitled to his lofty superiority. In other words, if you read Klosterman, you're just the type of person he'd look down on. In trying to deconstruct pop culture, Klosterman sometimes comes across as believing himself an expert about everything American. He also has no qualms about insulting outright the very audience reading his book. Even though he jokes in the beginning that he writes these things late at night in a state of near-delirium, you still get the impression he thinks he is, as he might put it, the "uber-mensch". Some of the essays are so specialized that I had absolutely no interest in reading them, and skipped right over them as I realized the entire essay was absorbed in deconstructing, say, basketball heroes. So I can't really say I enjoyed the entire book - some of it was unintelligible to me; hence, 3 stars (IMHO). True, Klosterman has been saturated with pop culture through his research and work with major magazines, but most of his off-the-cuff opinions are just that -- opinions and rantings rather than hard facts supported by any type of references, so keep in mind that you're reading personal essays, rather than research articles. Perhaps I was tainted, since I had just finished reading half of Michael Moore's "Stupid White Men," and the entire of Jon Krakauer's "Under the Banner of Heaven," so one more book illustrating the hopeless stupidity of the human race may have caused me unfair irritation. Strong essays for the most part, well written, but I lost interest and read them very patchily throughout the last half of the book because the tone grated on my nerves.
Rating: 
Summary: Speaking to people
Review: I can't tell you how much I enjoyed this book. I can't say I have ever read anyone who comes close to speaking to the generation that I am part of, like Klosterman does. Let's face it, it's a generation that has fond memories of Screech and can count GI Joe as a childhood friend. As such, it's different than any other time, and deserves different treatment, and even different language.
This collection of essays touches on points that seemingly come up all the time, but not to the level that Klosterman examines them. His look into why and digressions on it, makes this one brilliant book. I am telling everyone I know about this book, I believe so strongly in it.
Rating: 
Summary: sex, drugs and lots of chuck.
Review: i don't really know about his other works (though i did subscribe to spin magazine in order to get to know them), chuck klosterman is my new hero. the book is easy to read and follow, but also very interesting and immensely funny. i feel, after reading musing after musing about everything from john cusack to where his other sock goes, i know the man. i call it pure genius. buy the book! now!
Rating:
Summary: Interesting and surprisingly solid
Review: I expected a weak treatise on modern media, and was surprised by an honest, sometimes dark and always entertaining view of pop culture.
Traversing from Saved by the Bell, to the Sims to the evil of When Harry Met Sally, Klosterman observes our mass culture, and makes sense of what it means to us. What succeeds in the mass media environment does tell a lot about us, and this book brings some solid points of view to it. View it as a lower brow version of Bobos in Paradise.
The book reads quickly and well, as you're drawn into finding his jaded and barbed opinions on all these cultural icons. It'll go quick, and give you a new lens to view what's popular around us.
Rating:
Summary: Exhileratingly funny and insightful and near-perfect.
Review: I know Chuck Klosterman probably hates being compared to other contemporary writers today but I'm going to: Chuck Klosterman is the David Sedaris of popular culture essays. He is insightful, without being annoying; funny, without being pretentious; and most importantly, he extrapolates meaning from an amalgam of pop culture artifacts and the end result is one very satisfying read.Although I found out in the last chapter of the book that my "kind" (although I am a "born-againer" I haven't read "Left Behind" or seen the movie version and don't plan to anytime soon---so maybe I'm not really in this same "group" or "subculture") shouldn't be reading this book (or rather, wouldn't be reading this book) I gladly read on...fully aware that I was going against the ropes and finished what has been the most enjoyable piece of reading I've encountered in quite some time.Sure, there are 2 or 3 chapters here that don't really connect as well as Klosterman would like, but for most of the book...these essays are right on.Whether he's writing about The Sims, The Real World, or why country music really does tell us more about us as humans than we'd like to think, Klosterman breathes into his work an addictive and collective aurora that had me laughing and underlining like mad.However, having said that I will say that this book probably cannot be appreciated by people who aren't at least mildly "into" films and music of the past 30 years. I believe Klosterman is writing to the 18 year old and to the 33 year old (and everyone in between) yet, I'd find it hard for people outside of this to be able to connect well with his rush of references flooding in and over and out of so many pages here.All in all though, what a fantastic and wonderful read this book was. Finally, a book about pop culture that isn't brainless and idiotic but rather, sophisticated and idiotic and altogether remarkable. Kudos to Chuck. Keep 'em coming.One of your born-again readers.
Rating:
Summary: The lame observations of an unfunny man.
Review: I'll keep this short since I've already wasted enough time reading this garbage. Chuck Klosterman presents his limited view on a number of uninteresting topics. He presents his humorless observations as if they have some bearing in absolute truth, when they are just solely his poorly thought out perceptions. The only reason one would purchase a book such as this is to get a laugh. However, there isn't a single funny line in this entire book.
Rating:
Summary: Senseless Rambling
Review: If I was looking for some random perspectives on life (such as which Billy Joel album is the best, or why Real World characters are all the same), I would spend more time with my parents. At least then I would get a free dinner!
Rating:
Summary: Frequently Hilarious Essays on Pop Culture
Review: In the footsteps of Klosterman's Midwestern memoir/history of hair metal (Fargo Rock City) comes this collection of eighteen essays bearing the asterixed subtitle "A Low Culture Manifesto". The subtitle itself speaks volumes about the author's general style:a hyper-ironically witty phrase that displays a certain level of erudition along with a wink-wink, nudge-nudge. Klosterman is almost exactly my age, which means that our broad exposure pop culture exposure has been nearly identical, and while I greatly enjoyed the majority of the essays, there's a tension in his writing between wanting to make fun of low culture, and wanting to treat it seriously. It's the same tension (and flaw) of Fargo Rock City-he's writing about his guilty pleasures, but can't quite commit to the guilt or the pleasure. All that aside, I've probably recommended this book to more friends of mine than any other in recent months. If you browse it in the store be aware that the first essay (about how John Cusak, and emo songsmiths like Coldplay have made the concept of love very tricky for Gen Xers-or at least middle-class white ones), is far and away the best in the book. Which is not to say there isn't a lot of other great stuff. The second essay, about the computer game The Sims, is hugely funny (if only slightly insightful) and the fifth (which first ran in The New York Times Magazine) is an engaging account of a weekend spent on the road with a Guns N' Roses cover band. The sixth is also quite strong, being a comparison of Pamela Anderson with Marilyn Monroe that seeks to explain how the role of celebrity has changed over the half-century between them. His essay on internet porn is brief, funny, and moderately thoughtful. Essay ten, on children's breakfast cereals is almost entirely tongue in cheek, and is hilarious. His thirteenth essay wins the prize for best title ("The Awe-Inspired Beauty of Tom Cruise's Shattered, Troll-like Face"), and is a mostly enjoyable muddle of thoughts about contemporary film. After this is a rather wandering (but good) piece on the popularity of country music. Essays sixteen and seventeen are all about the media. The first is a sort of general purpose "here's the truth about the media from an insider" piece, and the second is a very keen report on music critic's conference. Closing things out is a critique of the wildly popular "Left Behind" series. I would recommend all of these to various of my friends. However, a third of the book isn't so good.. The third essay is about MTV's The Real World series, and fails to make any original points about the reality genre. The fourth is a tortured attempt to explain why Billy Joel is cool, and fails on all levels. The seventh entry is a really weak anti-soccer piece that is a total failure except for a portion where he details his job as a youth baseball coach and subsequent firing. The next essay, about the Lakers/Celtics rivalry of the '80s is equally muddled, and incoherent (probably way more so to those who weren't paying attention to the NBA in the '80s). Essay eleven is about the seminal TV show Saved By the Bell, which I've never watched, so that one went right over my head. This is followed by a rather weak essay attempting to tie Gen X malaise to The Empire Strikes Back. Klosterman's writing style is kind of love it or hate it (I love it). He's too clever and sarcastic by half, and doesn't mind showing it off, which can be kind of refreshing. He's also one of the best writers I've encountered when it comes to profanity-he uses it a lot and quite naturally, which helps to draw you into his bizarre little world. He's also a hilarious footnoter, for example, his essay on Internet porn starts: "When exactly did every housewife in America become a whore?" with the footnote reading "Except of course, my mom." He's also a very prolific digressor, which may infuriate those who want writers to adhere to their one main point, but I rather enjoy the little side trips. I found the 2/3 of the essays that I liked so engaging that I'm willing to let the other 1/3 slide-this time.
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