Customer comments on this selection.
 Actually VERY Good
Well-written, well-selected, and often very funny. The entries do a good job pinpointing the appeal of their respective cultural oddities, and the array is pretty dazzling. Heavily weighted toward the generation that came of age in the eighties, but hey, where else can you go for so much guilt in one place? Our colleges should consider giving it to foreign graduate students on their way through customs--it's a guide to all that's 'essentially useless', the hidden flotsam and jetsam of our culture.
I got this as an 'extra' gift from a friend, and expected to find it moderately amusing, something to thumb through. Surprise: My partner and I were so impressed with the book that we both wound-up reading through the entire thing.
Afterthought ends up being great purchase!
I bought this book simply to bring my purchase up to the free shipping total, but it ended up being a great purchase! It's a hilarious look at all those guilty pleasures we all harbor. Don't pass up this little gem of a book. You'll be laughing for hours! It's illustrated, too.
This book is itself a guilty pleasure
What's not to like? Three hundred pages of your favorite trash, elevated to nostalgia, handily packaged, and punchily, pithily, wittily written. Makes a great gift! (see "Infomercials")
 From ABBA and Abbott & Costello to Ziggy and Zima
Please! _Doctor Who_, a "guilty pleasure"?! Or anime, which is a genuine art form? And I'm very good at "Trivial Pursuit" -- most reference librarians are. It's also obviously a generational thing; my mother was a Liberace fan in the `50s, and I loved Jiffy Pop in the pre-microwave days myself. (I was already too old when MTV debuted in 1981, or for paintball, which appeared that same year.) And is there anyone who *doesn't* have a few souvenir T-shirts in the closet? On the other hand, who's gonna admit to deliberately watching Hanna-Barbera cartoons? Or _Leave It to Beaver_ reruns, or _The Gong Show_? Or to drinking Big Red? This is the perfect book for a long road trip, for reading aloud to each other and starting arguments. There are some odd omissions, though: How can you talk about "End-of-the-World Movies" without mentioning _On the Beach_? Or "Elvis Impersonators" without noting Andy Kaufman's eerily accurate version early in his career? Or, for the ultimate in self-reference, why isn't there a listing under "Trivia Books"?
meandering through silly memories
I loved this book, particularly the illustrations which I have found out were actually done by the creator of the wall street journal portait hedcut, Kevin Sprouls. I have admired his work for years and was delighted to find him working in a less serious venue. The book's descriptions were bright, sharp and quick. It was an ironic pairing with Sprouls' serious style and made for a more humorous mix.
buy it.
|
