Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs - Chuck Klosterman

My ten year old daughter has probably read 20 books in 2019. When I bought her a new book during a recent visit, she mentioned another book she wanted. Ironically it was the book I didn't choose at the store. So I ordered it for her. I wish I could read as fast as she does, but I don’t I finally finished my first book of the year. Chuck Klosterman’s Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs*.

This book which I had bought at a second-hand store many years ago, is a collection of short essays that seemingly have no through line, except that no pop culture exists in a vacuum. And the idea that after you read a
book of essays about pop culture you should have a list of things you want to watch, read, and listen to, even if it won’t be your first time consuming it.

Set up like a playlist. Klosterman jumps from stories about Guns n Roses cover bands and the Real World Seattle (the one where the girl with lupus gets slapped as she’s driving away in a cab) to the Zodiac killer. With short interludes in between.

What is great about this book is it is almost a time machine back to a more innocent time, of pop culture before the responsibility of post young adult adulthood.

*A low culture manifesto