With an exhaustive knowledge of popular culture and an almost effortless ability to spin brilliant prose out of unlikely subject matter, Klosterman attacks the entire spectrum of postmodern America: reality TV, Internet porn, Pamela Anderson, literary Jesus freaks, and the real difference between apples and oranges (of which there is none). And don't even get him started on his love life and the whole Harry-Met-Sally situation. Whether deconstructing Saved by the Bell episodes or the artistic legacy of Billy Joel, the symbolic importance of The Empire Strikes Back or the Celtics/Lakers rivalry, Chuck will make you think, he'll make you laugh, and he'll drive you insane -- usually all at once. Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs is ostensibly about art, entertainment, infotainment, sports, politics, and kittens, but -- really -- it's about us. All of us. As Klosterman realizes late at night, in the moment before he falls asleep, "In and of itself, nothing really matters. What matters is that nothing is ever 'in and of itself.'" Read to believe.

    From Hit Stix to Hungry, Hungry Hippos, My Little Pony to My Buddy, this book has all the toys and games that made the '80s one of the gnarliest decades of the century. Packed with colorful photographs and illustrations and written in an entertaining, irreverent style, Just Can't Get Enough is filled with personal anecdotes, funny facts, and random trivia, along with special features like the Redonkulous Meter, which measures how beyond ridiculous each product truly was. Hilarious and original, this book is a must-have for anyone who ever snuggled with their Care Bear, staged epic battles between He-Man and Skeletor, played with their Lite-Brite for hours, or all of the above.

    Band re-formations and reunion tours, expanded reissues of classic albums and outtake-crammed box sets, remakes and sequels, tribute albums and mash-ups . . . But what happens when we run out of past? Are we heading toward a sort of culturalecological catastrophe where the archival stream of pop history has been exhausted?Simon Reynolds, one of the finest music writers of his generation, argues that we have indeed reached a tipping point, and that although earlier eras had their own obsessions with antiquity—the Renaissance with its admiration for Roman and Greek classicism, the Gothic movement's invocations of medievalism—never has there been a society so obsessed with the cultural artifacts of its own immediate past. Retromania is the first book to examine the retro industry and ask the question: Is this retromania a death knell for any originality and distinctiveness of our own?

    Looking, acting, and ultimately being Prep is not restricted to an elite minority lucky enough to attend prestigious private schools, just because an ancestor or two happened to arrive here on the Mayflower. You don't even have to be registered Republican. In a true democracy everyone can be upper class and live in Connecticut. It's only fair. The Official Preppy Handbook will help you get there.

    

    Proposing instead that kitsch is the product of a larger sensibility of loss, Celeste Olalquiaga shows how it enables the momentary re-creation of experiences that exist only as memories or fantasies. Simultaneously exposing and celebrating this process, Olalquiaga gives us a bold, trenchant analysis of what and how we see when we look at kitsch.

    

    Major Dudes collects some of the smartest and wittiest interviews Becker and Fagen have ever given, along with intelligent reviews of—and commentary on— their extraordinary songs. Compiled by leading music critic Barney Hoskyns, Major Dudes features contributions from the likes of Sylvie Simmons, Fred Schruers, and the late Robert Palmer; plus rare interviews and reviews of Steely Dan’s early albums from Disc, Melody Maker, and Rolling Stone. With an introduction by Hoskyns and an obituary for Walter Becker by David Cavanagh, Major Dudes will be the centerpiece on every fan’s shelf.

    Joe became an instant hit. Today, the first run of these action figures (1982 - 1994) has become one of the hottest collectibles in the toy-collecting hobby.The Ultimate Guide to G.I. Joe 1982 - 1994 is the must-have resource for enthusiasts, with more coverage than any other book available!This comprehensive, full-color reference features 1,000 brilliant photos, identification information and current collector pricing for 350 action figures and 240 vehicles and accessories.

    Los Angeles that year, in fact, dominated popular culture more than it ever had before, or would again. Working in film, recording, and television studios around Sunset Boulevard, living in Brentwood and Beverly Hills or amid the flickering lights of the Hollywood Hills, a cluster of transformative talents produced an explosion in popular culture which reflected the demographic, social, and cultural realities of a changing America. At a time when Richard Nixon won two presidential elections with a message of backlash against the social changes unleashed by the sixties, popular culture was ahead of politics in predicting what America would become. The early 1970s in Los Angeles was the time and the place where conservatives definitively lost the battle to control popular culture.Rock Me on the Water traces the confluence of movies, music, television, and politics in Los Angeles month by month through that transformative, magical year. Ronald Brownstein reveals how 1974 represented a confrontation between a massive younger generation intent on change, and a political order rooted in the status quo. Today, we are again witnessing a generational cultural divide. Brownstein shows how the voices resistant to change may win the political battle for a time, but they cannot hold back the future.

    Seen by tens of billions worldwide, these are the unforgettable Onion Magazine covers that altered the course of human history and radically redefined your trivial life anew every weekend. Profound philosophical questions, the thoughts of leading cultural luminaries, harsh truths of existence, remorseless personal attacks -- you will encounter full-color graphical representations of all of these within this handsome volume. Whether you are a connoisseur of pretty pictures or are new to looking at images, The Onion Magazine: The Iconic Covers that Transformed an Undeserving World is sure to give you, the feebleminded consumer, far more pleasure than you have any earthly right to experience.

    and covered in blood!Demonic possession! Haunted condominiums! Murderous babies! Man-eating moths! No plot was too ludicrous, no cover art too appalling, no evil too despicable for the Paperbacks From Hell.Where did they come from? Where did they go? Horror author Grady Hendrix risks his soul and sanity (not to mention yours) to relate the true, untold story of the Paperbacks From Hell.Shocking story summaries! Incredible cover art! And true tales of writers, artists, and publishers who violated every literary law but one: never be boring. All this awaits, if you dare experience the Paperbacks From Hell.

    This one-of-a-kind encounter with the absurdities, complexities, and nuances of race relations is brought to you by five writers of color whose groundbreaking independent magazine, ego trip, has been called "the world's rawest, stinkiest, funniest magazine" by Spin.Filled with enough testifying and truth to satisfy even the good Reverend Sharpton, ego trip's Big Book of Racism is a riotous and revolutionary look at race and popular culture that's sure to spark controversy and ignite debate.

    French of Family Affair) "singing" songs by Bob Dylan, and tons more

    Fights over taxes. Racial resentments. A Lakers-Celtics championship. The Karate Kid topping the box-office charts. Bon Jovi touring the country. These words could describe our current moment—or the vaunted iconography of three decades past.In this wide-ranging and wickedly entertaining book, New York Times bestselling journalist David Sirota takes readers on a rollicking DeLorean ride back in time to reveal how so many of our present-day conflicts are rooted in the larger-than-life pop culture of the 1980s—from the “Greed is good” ethos of Gordon Gekko (and Bernie Madoff) to the “Make my day” foreign policy of Ronald Reagan (and George W. Bush) to the “transcendence” of Cliff Huxtable (and Barack Obama).Today’s mindless militarism and hypernarcissism, Sirota argues, first became the norm when an ’80s generation weaned on Rambo one-liners and “Just Do It” exhortations embraced a new religion—with comic books, cartoons, sneaker commercials, videogames, and even children’s toys serving as the key instruments of cultural indoctrination. Meanwhile, in productions such as Back to the Future, Family Ties, and The Big Chill, a campaign was launched to reimagine the 1950s as America’s lost golden age and vilify the 1960s as the source of all our troubles. That 1980s revisionism, Sirota shows, still rages today, with Barack Obama cast as the 60s hippie being assailed by Alex P. Keaton–esque Republicans who long for a return to Eisenhower-era conservatism. “The past is never dead,” William Faulkner wrote. “It’s not even past.” The 1980s—even more so. With the native dexterity only a child of the Atari Age could possess, David Sirota twists and turns this multicolored Rubik’s Cube of a decade, exposing it as a warning for our own troubled present—and possible future.