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    Eating the Dinosaur
    Eating the Dinosaur
    Eating the Dinosaur
    Audiobook6 hours

    Eating the Dinosaur

    Written by Chuck Klosterman, Ira Glass and Errol Morris

    Narrated by Chuck Klosterman

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    About this audiobook

    After a bestselling and acclaimed diversion into fiction, Chuck Klosterman, author of Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, returns to the form in which he’s been spectacularly successful with a collection of essays about our consumption of pop culture and sports.

    Q: What is this book about?

    A: Well, that’s difficult to say. I haven’t read it yet—I’ve just picked it up and casually glanced at the back cover. There clearly isn’t a plot. I’ve heard there’s a lot of stuff about time travel in this book, and quite a bit about violence and Garth Brooks and why Germans don’t laugh when they’re inside grocery stores. Ralph Nader and Ralph Sampson play significant roles. I think there are several pages about Rear Window and college football and Mad Men and why Rivers Cuomo prefers having sex with Asian women. Supposedly there’s a chapter outlining all the things the Unabomber was right about, but perhaps I’m misinformed.

    Q: Is there a larger theme?

    A: Oh, something about reality. “What is reality,” maybe? No, that’s not it. Not exactly. I get the sense that most of the core questions dwell on the way media perception constructs a fake reality that ends up becoming more meaningful than whatever actually happened. Also, Lady Gaga.

    Q: Should I read this book?

    A: Probably. Do you see a clear relationship between the Branch Davidian disaster and the recording of Nirvana’s In Utero? Does Barack Obama make you want to drink Pepsi? Does ABBA remind you of AC/DC? If so, you probably don’t need to read this book. You probably wrote this book. But I suspect everybody else will totally love it, except for the ones who totally hate it.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateOct 20, 2009
    ISBN9780743598736
    Author

    Chuck Klosterman

    Chuck Klosterman is the bestselling author of many books of nonfiction (including The Nineties, Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs, I Wear the Black Hat, and But What If We're Wrong?) and fiction (Downtown Owl, The Visible Man, and Raised in Captivity). He has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, GQ, Esquire, Spin, The Guardian, The Believer, Billboard, The A.V. Club, and ESPN. Klosterman served as the Ethicist for The New York Times Magazine for three years, and was an original founder of the website Grantland with Bill Simmons. 

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    Reviews for Eating the Dinosaur

    4/5

    44 ratings10 reviews

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    • 4/5
      I loved Klosterman's take on modern society and how cultural influences are found throughout pretty much everything we do or say or even think. I found this book intriguing in it's philosophical discussions about everything from football plays to the music of ABBA to the Unabomber.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Reviewed by Mr. Overeem (Language Arts)I have read many of Klosterman's books and liked them all. The five stars I've given this one were EARNED; 70-80 pages in I was hating it (he seemed too clever and wonky for his own good). Now, however, I think it's his best essay collection because it's his most unified: each piece grapples with the difficulty we have seeing reality in a media-drenched world. Along the way, Klosterman will force the reader to consider all the ethical dilemmas of time travel; the essentially liberal and progressive nature of football (I didn't stutter); what we are really looking for when we look in our neighbors' windows; why Garth Brooks' "Chris Gaines" experiment was the most fascinating thing he's ever done; why the Unabomber's manifesto might be essential reading; why ABBA is relevant (by being supremely irrelevant); what the popularity of MAD MEN reveals about our desire to be tricked; and (this isn't a comprehensive list of subjects, I just have other things to do) the kinship of Kurt Cobain and David Koresh. Needless to say, provocative stuff!
    • 4/5
      Here's a little exercise I did in my mind while reading Chuck Klosterman's Eating the Dinosaur. I thought of two of my favorite writers of non-fiction: Bill Simmons on sports, and David Foster Wallace on many serious matters of consequence. Those two are at the extremes of a continuum, from fun-but-trivial to very serious indeed. Chuck Klosterman falls right in between the two: he shares Simmons's fascination with sports, pop culture and celebrity (in fact Klosterman is a frequent guest on BS's podcasts, and he now writes for Grantland, BS's pet sports site at espn), but he frequently veers off to ask serious questions.Given such a wide subject range, Klosterman doesn't always hit his targets, but he succeeds frequently enough to make this an enjoyable essay collection. Although he gets a bit precious sometimes (stop trying to impress your NYC buddies, upper midwestern homeboy!), he's often able to push past the simple or simply clever observation, and on into real insight. Recommended.
    • 4/5
      Is Klosterman commercially accepted? Probably, now at least, but he doesn?t care. Comparing David Koresh the ringleader of the Branch Davidians (aka The Waco Incident) with the mainstream success of the forever guilty punker turned commercial artist Kurt Cobaine, Klosterman spurns meaningful debates for a living.Interviewing professional interviewers such as Ira Glass of This American Life fame on the subject of interviewing specifically truth, perception, and why people answer questions about themselves. Although Klosterman's wit and style is to be adored, I do have to take a stand against a particular conclusion that I don't find accurate about laughing. I don't know if its entirely true, what about the innocent laughing girls found in such Eastern European art-house films. Anyway, semantics. His bit about Herzog and irony is fun and can only be Klosterman, the quintessential post-ironist.
    • 4/5
      Interesting book of essays chock full of pop culture references and unconventional insights. Klosterman's topics were surprisingly interesting including a breakdown of why Ralph Sampson's career failure matters to all of us to why the Unabomber's manifesto is culturally relevant. My favorite essay was the one one explaining why laugh tracks are the most philosophically idiotic things ever created and how they have changed us as a culture.
    • 3/5
      A nice break from novels to read a collection of essays from Klosterman. While I am not sure I could identify an overarching point, I did enjoy reading them and serveral made me think about things differently which I always appreciate.
    • 3/5
      This is my second Chuck Klosterman book after Sex, Drugs and Cocoa Puffs. Containing a wide variety of essay topics, I wasn't as entertained this time around. I managed to make it though his thorough football and basketball entries so I'm damn proud of me too, Chuck. I was completely lost during the football one, but I read it. He's a smart and witty guy and challenges a person's view of the world -- he makes you think and question, so I do like his writing. Many of the topics left me a little -- meh, but I think there is an essay or two in this for everyone. What's one man's trash is another's treasure. Overall, an interesting read.
    • 1/5
      Could it be possible for a man to be more wrong on a regular basis?

      If you're writing a time-travel essay, you had better get little things like the plot of Back to the Future 2 right, especially if an argument revolves around what you say happened! Again and again, he pulls out these kinds of factual confusions and mis-judgments until I finally had to stop reading to keep myself from throwing the book against the wall.

      In retrospect, my warning sign should have been the book getting interesting when Errol Morris showed up for a few pages and talked about his interests and then immediately getting frustrating again once he had left the scene.

      Still mad.
    • 4/5
      I just finished reading Chuck Klosterman?s latest book, Eating the Dinosaur and i didn?t like it. Before i get into why i didn?t like it, i do want to say that i thought his essay about Kurt Cobain (Oh, the Guilt) and Garth Brooks (The Passion of Garth) to be really interesting. Also, the Time Machine and Abba essays were okay. I then had somewhat of a problem with the rest. I have 4 main reasons.The first and main reason i didn?t like the book is this: Chuck writes about what he?s interested in. His past books were about Rock N Roll, Reality TV, Billy Joel, Dixie Chicks and other things. They had an interesting take on items i liked and were very familiar with. These essays expanded my thinking on these topics. For example, i had never realized that the Dixie Chicks were that similar to 80?s Van Halen, nor had i thought about how Billy Joels was a unique kind of cool different than almost all other rock stars (on a coolness range from white to black, he?s an orange). Also, past essays celebrated both the subjects and the concepts. The current essays are about philosophical views on the world. He asks questions and makes statements about society such as, * Why we like or hate people who fail * Why we interact with popular advertising in the manner we do * Why Chuck hates laugh tracks in TV shows and america?s approach to humor * Why NFL Football is great * Why watching people (voyeurism) is exciting: (because there?s a possibility for anything to happen)These are the topics of this book and they are just nowhere close to as interesting as his previous topics. His book of interviews, IV, had a great interview with Val Kilmer. Nothing here touches that.Reason number 2 for not liking this book is that there are lots of quotes in the book. For some reason my Kindle never shows who says these quotes. That makes them WAY less interesting and just frustrating. Don?t read this book on a kindle.My third reason is that I didn?t like the prose. I think i know why this is. I?ve tracked down Kloserman on podcasts and now seen him speak twice. I know what he sounds like in person. So much so that i now hear his voice talking when i read his text. Do you know when you notice someone is saying the word ?like? too much and all of the sudden you find yourself pay attention to them actually say the work ?like? over and over instead of whatever it is they are trying to say? Well, this happens with me and Chuck. He uses the words ?idiom? and italicizes his word ?must? and i can hear his emphasis. It bothers me. Maybe i?ve just read too much of his stuff.Finally, the last essay in the book is about his dislike of technology and I completely disagree with his opinion regarding the Internet. He has a part in the book where he criticizes anyone who publicly praises the internet because he argues they only like it because it now makes them relevant. He says,?the only people who insist the internet is wonderful are those who need it to give the life meaning.? I can?t begin to say how wrong that stance is.At the end, Klosterman comes off as a guy who is just bitter that the world is changing. He reminds me of people who refuse to watch television, won?t own cell phones and only listen to music on vinyl. Grow up.
    • 5/5
      If you've ever wondered what makes Klosterman's books so compelling, the secret is out: he's honest. In a culture so obsessed with following trends and enjoying things because we're told to, Klosterman is honest with what he likes and dislikes. That is what makes this collection of essays so compelling.He covers a lot of ground here: Garth Brooks, Time Travel, Abba, Football, Technology, and the list goes on. He has an ability to compare two seemingly unrelated things to unearth profound connections. I'll never think about David Koresh without the flannel-clad image of Kurt Cobain in the back of my head again!The last essay clinched the collection for me. He confessed his belief that technology is degrading our relationships, along with his inability to resist its pull. I'm typing this review on a Dell laptop in a Wordpress interface that will automatically publish it in a month or so. Touch?, Klosterman, touch?.