Gen-Xers rejoice. Chuck Klosterman is here. The Nineties is a retrospective look at a unique period of time between the collapse of glam-metal and the attack on the World Trade centre. For those of who are children of the post-war baby boomers, the 1990s are our defining cultural moment.

Klosterman does a thorough job with this decade. He looks at everything from music and sports to television, movies and politics. Perhaps best of all, he describes what it meant to feel like a Gen-Xer:

That, more than any person or event, informed the experience of nineties life: an adversarial relationship with the unseemliness of trying to hard. (2)

In a word, whatever.

At 300+ pages, this book does lose a little of its magic in the later chapters, but don’t let that dissuade you. If you came of age during the 1990s, read this book and be seen.

Klosterman, Chuck. The Nineties: A Book. Penguin Books, 2022.