I just finished Killing Yourself to Live by Chuck Klosterman (not to be confused with Chuck Palahniuk, not one of whose books I have ever been able to finish, and oh yeah, I hate Fight Club the movie too, so there). But back to Mr Klosterman. While some of the lines in the book made me laugh out loud, chortle even, I was somewhat disappointed in the book. Part of it may well be that the back cover lead me to believe the book was about one thing when it was actually about something else. And part of it may be that, for a music critic, Mr Klosterman appears to have, well, suspect taste. But people who know the complete lyrics to "Hotel California" shouldn't throw stones, eh?, and it's really not fair to judge someone's writing negatively because you're kind of thunderstruck that they like KISS and admit it in public.
So I'll say this: even though this book is more about Mr Klosterman's complex relationships with various women than it is his road trip to visit the sites of various famous rock star deaths, anyone who keeps a never-unwrapped CD of The Best of Peter, Paul, and Mary next to used copy of Husker Du's Zen Arcade in the hopes that they'll "slowly fuse into a Pixies' B-side collection" probably deserves your book-buying dollar. Especially since you could whip through this book in three hours if you're stuck in an airport or something.
xoxo
4 comments:
"...you could whip through this book in three hours if you're stuck in an airport or something."
I think that blurb needs to go on the book cover, at least the special airport newsstand editions. :)
I wonder if anyone's every attempted to discern if the increase in air travel delays has caused an increase in book buying?
Not hardly. What with everybody (except me) having Ipods and video games on their phones and wireless internet and such, actual books are too low-tech for airport time wasting.
Kind of depends. First, if the airport PAs can't compete with the background noise, reading is a good option because you may miss something (like your flight) if you're hooked into your iPod. Second, if you're in one of those on-the-plane delay loops when you can't use anything electronic. The average passenger just needs that moment of gestalt, remembering, "hey, I can READ!"
Good words.
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