Chuck Klosterman’s recent book But What If We’re Wrong: Thinking About the Present As If It Were the Past speculates on the likelihood that many universally accepted cultural and scientific beliefs will someday seem absurd. Klosterman asks straightforward questions that are profound in their simplicity: How certain are we about our understanding of gravity and time? What will be the defining memory of rock music? How is history constructed (and how much can it be trusted)? The answers are interwoven with the type of high-wire humor and nontraditional analysis only Klosterman would dare to attempt. 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, and Neil deGrasse Tyson, among others.
Klosterman is the bestselling author of seven nonfiction books (including the cult classic Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs) and two novels. He has written for the New York Times, GQ, and Esquire and served as Ethicist for the New York Times Magazine. His forthcoming book Chuck Klosterman X: A Highly Specific, Defiantly Incomplete History of the Early 21st Century will be composed of articles and essays covering the past decade, including keystone pieces about Breaking Bad, Taylor Swift, Tom Brady, and many more cultural figures.