Chuck Klosterman is the bestselling author of seven nonfiction books (including Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs and I Wear the Black Hat) and two novels. He was an original founder of the Website Grantland with Bill Simmons. He served as the Ethicist for The New York Times Magazine.

Let's begin with what Klosterman identifies as some of the lineaments of present-day culture:

  • The psychological impact of the Internet on day-to-day living.
  • The (seemingly regular) deaths of unarmed black men at the hands of white police officers.
  • An unclear definition of privacy.
  • An impotent, unspecified hatred of the wealthiest "one percent."
  • The prolonging of adolescence and the avoidance of adulthood.
  • A distrust of objective storytelling.
  • The intermittent rebooting of normalcy in the years following 9/11.

The author hammers home the point that we should not view this unconventional book as "a collection of essays." Instead he wants to jiggle our minds with "Big Potato" questions about the picture of reality offered to us by science; naming the defining figure in rock music; and trying to determine the most grievous ethical debauches of our times. There are also ditties on pop culture topics such as the future of football, the continuing fascination with the television sitcom Roseanne, the complexities of the First Amendment, and the case against freedom.

Klosterman's fascinating book catches a glimpse of today and the manifold ways we will remember the present when it is the past.