I thoroughly enjoyed this collection of essays. As someone who lived my formative years in the 90's- I was 19 in 1999-there were so many times when I just had to put the book down and take a moment because Klosterman described perfectly what it was like living through the era- from small details to macro descriptions.

The mix of essays are on topics ranging from cultural, political, technological and economic, to more, making it a multidimensional and satisfying read.

Klosterman is smart, funny and dedicated to telling the story of a generation (X) and of a decade that was like no other. This is beyond nostalgia- although there is that. The cultural critiques are deep and illuminating. I don't purport to know how other age-groups might react to this book, but as a Genxer I very much related and was sad when the book was done.

As a librarian, I would pair this book with another great collection of essays I recently read by Rax King - 'Tacky: Love Letters to the Worst Culture We Have to Offer'. Although there are some key differences (King's book is about 10 years chronologically after Klosterman's, and King's incorporates a lot more personal memoir and the experience of being a woman), they are both witty, incisive essays based around critiquing cultural artefacts, and a delight to read.

Ok so the nineties.. what a decade that was! I am a 90's kid through and through.
This book made me very nostalgic on the a lot of levels.. from grunge music to Nirvana to
Alanis Morissette to Mike Tyson.

There's a lot of information in this book, the cover may look very cutesy but
its packed with information of events and stuff that happened well in the
nineties obviously! haha!

I think that everyone that experienced the crazy decade which is the nineties should read this book!

I definitely enjoyed this book, as I think anyone would who lived through the nineties would. I've never read any Chuck Klosterman before, so I didn't know what to expect. It's reflective without being nostalgic or pandering. It's also great and making connections between events and tying ideas together. But nothing fully blew my mind or challenged my thinking. And the moments I personally enjoyed the most were the weirder parts of culture, like Crystal Pepsi, as opposed to Ross Perot's role in the 1992 election. Nonetheless, the book never dwells on any topic too long and it bops along as a fairly compulsive read.

This is a book about Generation X, for Generation X, but one of the generation's best cultural critics.

I always considered myself an '80s kid (I graduated high school in 1989), but the 90s were when I and my generation really came into our own. I cast my first vote for president. I finished colleged, got my first job, married, had my first kid. I'm an 80s kid but a 90s grown-up, I guess.

Klosterman brings a rich background of pop culture criticism to this endavor, particularly in the area of music. He kicks of the book with a discussion of grunge and Nirvana that took me deeper into the genre than I had at the time. He uses music to show that the generation coming of age in the 90s was looking for its own form of authenticity after the glitz and glam of the 80s. The theme ranged from Ethan Hawke's character in Reality Bites to Alanis Morisette's pop song ("The 90s equivalent of a self-own," Klosterman writes, "Here, it seemed, was a woman singing about irony without knowing what Irony was.")

Klosterman is at his most insightful when he writes about pop. Musings on politics and the rise of Oprah are interesting, but I didn't find them to bring anything new.

One of the most interest discussions was on the rise of the Internet. The 90s began with few people having ever heard of the Internet, and it ended with a majority of people having an email account and a modem. The Boomer generation still sees itself largely outside the boundaries of this Internet, Klosterman writes, while the Millenial Generation would hardly be able to imaging life without it. Generation X grew up in the 'before time' and worked in the 'after.' As I read, I thought of the two year stretch between the time I first heard the word, "e-mail," and the time I hooked my own computer up to the World Wide Web.

For 90s-adjacent Millenials, there are chapters on the TV shows Friends and Seinfeld, reflections on sports: Michael Jordan and baseball's steroids scandal. Klosterman covers a lot of ground. Readers will leave enlightened.

Special thanks to NetGalley and Penguin Books for providing me with a free galley in exchange for this honest review.

I’ve been a Chuck Klosterman fan for years, so when granted the opportunity to read this ARC from NetGalley, I was thrilled. This was a super interesting read/trip down memory lane. It read almost like a textbook in some ways, and I have no doubt that some teachers may want to add this to their curriculum when teaching about recent social/political/cultural history.

One quote stood out early on: “Every generation melodramatically assumed it was somehow be the last, and there were some of that in the 90s, to end but not as much as in the decade that came before and far less than the decades that would come after. It was perhaps the last period in American history when personal and political engagement was still viewed as optional.”

*Special thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for providing this e-ARC in exchange for an honest review. Pub date: February 8, 2022

“It was, in retrospect, a remarkably easy time to be alive.”

The nineties! This quote early in the book had me ready to dive into a nostalgic trip through my childhood because looking back—it really was an easier time to be alive—especially as a kid. Blissfully unaware of things to come.

As a decade that took me from kindergarten to high school—it was fascinating to relive the 90s through an adult lens. Very heavy on musical influences of the time which reeled me right in.

From grunge to sports, politics to crystal pepsi, Napster to OJ to the first season of The Real World and Dolly the cloned sheep. This is an in depth look at the last [mostly] analog decade that made us.

I used to be a huge fan of Chuck Klosterman, unfortunately I don't think he's an author for me anymore. Not sure if his writing has become less fun, or if I have changed as a reader but this just wasn't the book for me.

This book was written for a very certain, very specific generation of people. While many people, in fact, anyone of any generation can--and should--read this, this is a book that has references and inside jokes that only those OF Generation X will laugh at. Only Chuck Klosterman can combine a chapter of a book with Pauley Shore and Bill Clinton and it make sense.

This is a real...dare I say...definitive book of pop-culture, or at least "cool" pop culture of the Nineties. It's the good stuff. Reality Bites, Nirvana, The Matrix, OJ, Crystal Pepsi, Zima, Michael Jordan playing baseball. None of that weird neon, Vanilla Ice, MTV Spring Break house stuff. Klosterman gets to the root of what made the 90s great. He gets the meat of it - the heart of it all - the politics, the economy, the music, the movies, the college football scandal (!!!).

I've been a Chuck Klosterman fan since his days at Spin. I have read every single one of his books and have broken the spine from reading and re-reading. This one will be no different.

Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for the opportunity to read and review this book. Thanks to Chuck Klosterman for being the best.

I received an ARC of this upcoming book through NetGalley.

This is Chuck Klosterman at his absolute best, a series of essays displaying his unique, trademarked takes on the culture and events of the 1990s. The book has no overall theme, but it covers a wide range of topics. Klosterman does far more than recount things that happened; he always has an interesting angle on whatever he chooses to write about.

News stories covered include: the transition from Bush to Clinton, the Gulf War, Ross Perot, Rodney King and police brutality against blacks, the Oklahoma city bombing, , the Clarence Thomas Supreme Court confirmation hearings, the UNAbomber, OJ Simpson, the Columbine shootings and Y2K ("the catastrophe that never happened").

Klosterman loves writing about music and covers the Seattle grunge movement, led by Nirvana with the Nevermind album and Smells Like Teen Spirit song. Other music topics include Tupac and hip-hop music, Alanis Morissette and Liz Phair, plus Garth Brooks. The beginnings of the demise of the music industry as it had been known is also described.

Mass media is another of Klosterman's favorite areas and he covers 90s authors, movies (like Titanic), TV (Seinfeld, Friends), the development of cable news networks (Fox News, MSNBC following CNN) and Oprah Winfrey.

And then there are the sports topics: the 1994 baseball work stoppage that resulted in cancellation of the World Series and the alienation of a significant portion of baseball's fan base, steroids and baseball, Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls basketball dynasty and boxer Mike Tyson.

And there are the overall cultural trends: the emergence of Generation X, the new popularity of the internet and cell phones and the use of Google to replace one's memory.

Almost everything Klosterman writes about is fascinating, but if something less interesting gets talked about, he deftly moves on to something else soon enough.

It's only January but this thought-provoking book will be one of my favorites of 2022.

As someone who lived some of their most formative years (middle and high school) in the 1990s, Chuck Klosterman's book The Nineties is completely up my alley. While it seems insane that we are far enough removed from the 1990s to have any sort of cohesive perspective on it, it actually has been quite some time and themes certainly emerge for the decade. As an old millennial (xennial, really a microgeneration between Gen X and Millennials), I was old enough to remember the decade and many events Klosterman highlights I remember well and experienced the massive changes to people's way of life- especially in terms of technology. I did not grow up with the internet, cell phones, or digital music. I lived an analog life for most of my formative childhood years before rapid sweeping changes by the time I hit college completely upended how I interacted with others and the world.

Klosterman roped me in immediately with his first title being a riff on a Ben Folds Five song, one of the formative bands of my high school years. Throughout the book he highlights major events in worlds of politics, music, movies, sports, science, etc. The major overarching change in the 1990s had to do with technology, and its role in our lives. It changed from us controlling it to, by the end of the decade, it controlling our lives. In politics, he tries to answer the question how George HW Bush went from such a high approval rating to losing to an Arkansan named Bill Clinton, and how the Clinton presidency ramped up the polarization in the country. In music, "gangster" rap and the outrage about its explicit lyrics, grunge music, and the unexpected dominance of Garth Brooks are discussed. In cinema, the rise of the video store allows access to the public of much more variety of films, the rise and popularity of independent films, but also the juggernaut of Titanic. In sports, Michael Jordan dominated the decade with his time with the Chicago Bulls, baseball had a strike, and the steroid era of mammoth home run commenced. Major leaps in science occurred such as the cloning of the sheep Dolly. And major news stories that still reverberate now are discussed such as the Oklahoma City bombing, OJ Simpson trial, Columbine shooting, Clarence Thomas confirmation hearing, etc. All which were highly televised. One can see the threads from events from the 1990s and how they were germs of issues that we are still dealing with now. Fascinating and nostalgic look at a decade where the world was in transition.

Thank you to Penguin Press via NetGalley for the advance reader copy in exchange for honest review.

I received an advanced reader’s copy in exchange for an honest review

More accurate than a book on the 90s deserves to be; less meta than a book on the 90s deserves to be.

As a Gen-xer I absolutely loved this trip down memory lane. Im a huge fan of Klostweman, and this book didn’t disappoint.

Interesting retrospect on the 90s from a visit male middle class/ lower upper class male. It was great to revisit the turn of the century through this book.

As a fan of Chuck's previous books, "The Nineties" did not disappoint! The stream of conscious narrative stringing essays together under a common theme, interjecting pop culture and why it was relevant throughout makes for a great nostalgic read for anyone that lived through the 90's!

I have read several Chuck Klosterman books because my husband is a huge fan, so I am grateful to have received this ARC!

This is the type of book that you read and smile out loud. The type of nostalgia and insight from Chuck's opinions to his deep dives really flow. In particular, the book opens up talking about generations, and I highlighted a quote that I thought perfectly describes the way different generations view others. There were events that I had no memory of and events that I kept thinking "oh ya I forgot about that!" All in all, this was a fun read!

There isn't really much to give away with this book. It's a book about what led up to the nineties and nineties culture and life. This would make an excellent gift for a friend or a book to take on a trip.

I also absolutely love the cover!

Thanks again for ARC! Ordered a hard copy for my husband.

I had never read a Chuck Klosterman book but could easily recognize one of his when out in the wild because of the iconic covers. With no idea what his writing was like, I went in without any expectations to The Nineties. Within a few pages, I was completely charmed by Klosterman's writing. His dry and self-aware humor is never too self-deprecating to be annoying, nor does he come off as "too cool" either. (His footnote describing himself in the 90s had me howling.)

The Nineties is as much about what happened in the decade as it is about how we perceive it in the present. I read this book in the first week of 2021, during the post-holiday Omicron surge that has left most of us feeling tired and resigned to masks and scrounging for at-home test kits. Looking back felt like an escape for me to a simpler time. I turn 5 years old in 1990 and 15 in the year 2000. The future was something I took for granted. Everything from that decade looks baked in the sun within my memory—probably because I'm thinking about summer vacations in my southern hometown. The thing is, I recognized 98% of what is mentioned in this book, and was pulled into historical moments that felt familiar but lacked context until now. Reading this book felt like putting together a puzzle about the past. I was in the 5th grade when the OJ verdict came in and had to explain to my desk partner Janelle what "not guilty" ment. My school held a little "election" for the president in 1992 and I remember noticing the amount of votes that Ross Perot garnered from other 7 year olds. I was in the 8th grade when Columbine happened and 16 when I watched the Towers fall. All of these memories were filled out by Klosterman's essays that bracket the decade loosely between the fall of the Berlin Wall and 9/11.

Klosterman sets up a chill vibe at the jump but then peels away the layers revealing how complicated life could be then. I left this book thinking that, while the styles and the technology has changed—we really haven't. Our memories evolve over time. I'm left thinking—especially right now—with the realization that I will (hopefully) look back at this time period and not think "wow we were so stupid" but instead "wow that was a mess and as good a decision as I could have made considering what was happening all around us".

This is not an exhaustive history and Klosterman himself admits this. He goes deep on Nirvana but barely skims the surface of the East Coast / West Coast hip-hop rivalry. (There were a couple sections that touch on sports that weren't relevant to my interests.) This really is a survey of the decade so don't go in expecting all your top hits things to make the list. My favorite sections were about politics and how language evolved in this decade.

I had a great time with this book and expect to purchase a few copies for the Gen-Xers in my life. I definitely see this as a gift book for people this year!

I came of age in the nineties, so this book immediately appealed to me. It’s at times, a fun trip down memory lane (e.g. the advent of the internet, Titanic, TiVo, Friends) and others a reminder of some of the more traumatizing elements of the decade (e.g. the Oklahoma City bombing). This is only my second book by this author. I read Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs many, many years ago. I enjoyed Klosterman’s commentary and insights. He offers his perspective without coming off as the end-all be-all expert.

The organization of the book is kind of all over the place, jumping from topic to topic, which didn’t bother me very much, but I cold see other readers potentially being annoyed by that.

The NetGalley description does as good a job as one could do to summarize what Chuck Klosterman does in The Nineties. It is a vast, sprawling work, jumping from subject to subject and linking ideas that at first seem wholly unconnected. As with any Klosterman book, there are lots of music, tv, and pop culture references, and it’s very well written with funny, quotable lines throughout.

How much you enjoy The Nineties may well depend on whether you lived through that decade as an adult or not, whether you like me and Mr. Klosterman are a member of the actual greatest generation, Generation X. There were so many things discussed here that I hadn’t thought about in at least 20 years. 2 Live Crew, Ice-T’s song Cop Killer, and the absurd panic about such music. The bizarre “clear craze” fad of clear drinks like Zima and Crystal Pepsi. Biosphere 2 and the zenith of New Age dogma in American life. Dolly the cloned sheep.

“But its more illuminating feature is something that often happens with popular history: An attempt at analyzing the distant past ends up being more astute about the living present.” Mr. Klosterman makes this observation while doing the exact same thing, placing topics and events from the Nineties that we still recall into a contemporary context. The beginning of the internet in everyday life. How online music sharing completely changed the music industry. How Fox Murder and the X-Files normalized conspiracy theories. How the televising of events like the Clarence Thomas Confirmation hearings, the OJ Bronco chase and trial, and Columbine changed how we think about what is real (“Anything experienced through the screen of a television becomes a TV show”). And how the 2000 Election “was the end of small differences. Moving forward, all differences would be colossal and ideological.”

Does The Nineties fully make sense of that decade before 9/11? Probably not, though that’s probably an impossible goal. And while he addresses his own viewpoint head-on, in the end this book comes from a mainstream, white, middle-class experience of 1990s America. If you were Black, if you were gay, I doubt you’d agree with Mr. Klosterman that life in the Nineties was “ecstatically complacent,” even though I—a fellow straight, white, middle-class man who was in his twenties during that decade—know exactly what he means. But as an answer to how America got to where we are now, the signposts along the way that warned what we were slipping towards, The Nineties is an excellent study. Recommended.

As someone who turned 3 in 1990, I viewed the events of this decade through a child’s eyes, so it was enlightening to get Klosterman’s point of view on things. This book is him at his best — a distanced yet wry observer of everything from Ross Perot’s presidential bid to the post-Titanic Leonardo DiCaprio obsession.

No one in the world could dissect the Nineties like Klosterman. I found this collection of essays to be delightful and thought-provoking, like all of his work. It was fascinating to read these perspectives on a decade where I was a child and to gain an understanding of them as an adult.

This is a great book for any pop culture sponge. I'd also suggest those who appreciate quick wit and sometimes grand abstract thinking pick up this book.