About a year ago, I wrote a post in my “Idolizing” series about Chuck Klosterman. I was in awe of his first effort of writing a novel called “Downtown Owl.” I thought the book was great and I even bought an advanced copy on eBay for nearly 30 dollars a few months before it was released. The book didn’t sell a lot of copies, but he still feels like he accomplished something that he wanted to do. He has been on record that he had promised his publisher a few more essay books like “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs” as a trade off that they would release one of his fiction works.
The reason that I am writing about Chuck Klosterman again in my “Idolizing” section is that he is still an idol of mine. I own all of his books, I try to read every column he writes, and when he’s on Bill Simmonss podcast, “The B.S. Report,” I pay attention to his every word. I know everyone has idols, but my idols usually have a shelf-life of about two years. I pretty much give them every opportunity to disappoint me. Klosterman has yet to do so and I’ve been a fan of his for almost 5 years. I don’t agree with everything he says, but I can usually understand his point of view. For example, when he was on The B.S. Report, he went on a monologue against Twitter. I am a big fan of Twitter (you can follow me here) and Klosterman believes that his fans would get over-saturated with his work if he is constantly whoring himself out or commenting on things that he would write in a column or book. I can understand his point of view, but I think Twitter has more uses than just social networking.
Chuck Klosterman has a new book coming out in a few months called “Eating The Dinosaur.” The book is in the line of “Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs” and is sure to be a must-read. If I didn’t think that an advance copy would appear on eBay soon, I would have already pre-ordered it on Amazon.
To sum everything up, I think Klosterman is a great writer and I hope one day to write as well as him. He is one of the reasons that I write and I hope that his new book will be a great success.
