Name: But What If We're Wrong?
ISBN: 9781445663395

Chuck Klosterman

What if everything we are most certain about turns out to be totally wrong?

But What If We're Wrong?

But What If We're Wrong? visualizes the contemporary world as it will appear to those who'll perceive it as the distant past. Chuck Klosterman asks questions that are profound in their simplicity: How certain are we about our understanding of gravity? How certain are we about our understanding of time? What will be the defining memory of rock music, five hundred years from today? How seriously should we view the content of our dreams? How seriously should we view the content of television? Are all sports destined for extinction? Is it possible that the greatest artist of our era is currently unknown (or--weirder still--widely known, but entirely disrespected)? Is it possible that we "overrate" democracy? And perhaps most disturbing, is it possible that we've reached the end of knowledge? Kinetically slingshotting through a broad spectrum of objective and subjective problems, But What If We're Wrong? is built on interviews with a variety of creative thinkers--George Saunders, David Byrne, Jonathan Lethem, Kathryn Schulz, Neil deGrasse Tyson, Brian Greene, Junot Díaz, Amanda Petrusich, Ryan Adams, Nick Bostrom, Dan Carlin, and Richard Linklater, among others--interwoven with the type of high-wire humor and nontraditional analysis only Klosterman would dare to attempt. It's a seemingly impossible achievement: a book about the things we cannot know, explained as if we did. It's about how we live now, once "now" has become "then."

Thinking about the Present as If it Were the Past

But what If We're Wrong?

Patrick Book

Every time I read a Klosterman book I wonder why he spends such an inordinate amount of time trying to find importance in the ephemeral. Turns out that's not ALL he spends his time on. After reading so many of his other books this was a real treat. Existentially head-spinning, yes, at times, but I love seeing him focus on big ideas and big concepts.

A. D. Knapp

Liked this quite a bit. Walked the line between being a thought-provoking book and a breezy read in a way that makes me a little uncomfortable that I actually got much out of it that will endure, but it felt pretty good going down.

Mariane Ferrantino 

I like Klosterman best when he is making me thing harder about pop culture. This was more than that, and he made me think so hard, my head was spinning by the end of the first chapter, but it was a good kind of spinning? This was definitely more a 3.5 out of 5. Dense, but enjoyable!

Michael Stuckey

A book about questions, but specifically about questioning things. I like this book because it reinforces my need to seek truth and look for all angles. I disagree with certain aspects, but that's kind of the point. Being able to see another side and consider it as an outcome.

"But What If We're Wrong? visualizes the contemporary world as it will appear to those who'll perceive it as the distant past"--

Max Bodach

very witty, somewhat overwrought premise, but all in all a very good frame for questioning one's own bias

Sloan, Kara

Fun read, fun exploration of a single idea across multiple disciplines. But that's all I can really say about it. Not much to remember or really talk about. Just some brain candy fun. Which is needed from time to time :)

Zoe Smolen

As a hardcore Chuck Klosterman fan, I may be a little biased. However, this is not my favorite book that he's ever written. While I immensely enjoyed the theme of the book, I did find it a little hard to digest at points, and took me about two weeks to finish - quite a long time for me to spend on a book. Part of what is difficult is how dense it is, and the fact that it is philosophically driven. But on the flip side, this is also what makes the book so enjoyable. I found myself constantly bringing up the book in conversation and can see myself buying or lending people a copy so that we can discuss the theories presented. 

I agree that it is not Klosterman's most accessible book, but I do think it is a fun pop-philosophy read. 

Thanks to Penguin for an advanced readers copy.

Jason 

meh. I only got about half way through before I got tired of it. Just didn't find it all that compelling. I get the basic premise, thru the lens of history.. basically nothing matters after we are dead and decades pass and people forget what we liked. Cool. Now I'm depressed.

But What If We're Wrong?

Reviews