X Saves the World: How Generation X Got the Shaft But Can Still Keep Everything from Sucking

By Jeff Gordinier

Book Overview

A shrewd and hilarious call to arms for the generation that fell between the cracks Jammed in between the garish showboating of the baby boomers and the tabloid-trash stunts of the millennials, the discerning generation that gave us Yahoo and Nirvana has been quietly and inexorably changing the face of American culture. The men and women who came of age in the era of Lollapalooza have been underrepresented for too long in pop sociology, but reporter and essayist Jeff Gordinier argues that its time for the slackers to rise up and take charge. Taking off from his controversial Details essay Has Generation X Already Peaked? Gordinier takes the reader along on an enthralling, eye-opening journeyfrom the expatriate garrets of Prague to the amped-up offices of dot-com San Francisco, from the muddy fields of Woodstock 94 to the celebrity-obsessed media machine of Us Weeklyin his quest to find the essence of X. Along the way he shows how Gen X innovations in art, comedy, technology, activism, and (gasp ) business have come to define the way we live now. A proud, accomplished, and unrepentant X-er, Jeff Gordinier writes with insight and biting wit about the generation that time forgotand makes a convincing case for Gen X as maybe, secretly, the greatest generation of all. Like Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs and The Tipping Point, X Saves the World flips conventional wisdom on its head and expertly captures the spirit of a strange and crucial era in American society.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0670018589
• ISBN13: 9780670018581
• Release Date: March 2008
• Publisher: Viking Books
• Length: 189 Pages
• Weight: 0.78 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.7" x 8.4"
• Age Range: 18 years and up
• Grade Range: Postsecondary and higher

Customer Reviews

...what's to become of MY kids???

...laugh out loud wit, humor, sarcasm, and angst amidst buckets of factual information of cultural significance. Being born in 1960, I feel an honorary X-man myself, much more attuned to Gordinier's world view, and much less aligned with Dennis Hopper.

Oh I used to be disgusted and now I try to be amused

I could not have enjoyed this book more. Gordinier sorts out key cultural moments and highlights striking generational exemplars, revealing a vivid image of a generation of people unlike those before or after. But his gift is not just inspiration and insight; it is also the wisdom not to take himself or his arguments too seriously. If turning on PBS and seeing a Flo'n'Eddie Hippiefest fundraiser makes you want to scream or you find yourself nauseated by the the 20-somethings in your office strutting around in their $500 jeans like they own the place, this book will help cleanse you of your venom and turn toward the positive. Aw, who am I kidding: Laughing at pathetic boomers or materialist, nihilistic millennials is just too much fun to pass up. Buy this book!

X Rocks The World

This book is a breath of fresh syntax & cultural analytic. Gordinier's ability to truly nail certain key moments in the zeitgeist and make them sing again is wicked good; whether the tune is happy sad (the moment Nirvana broke) or just plain gutter tragic (baby hit me one more time). Gordinier lifts the curtain on obvious truths that are only obvious once he reveals them. I love deceptively simple artistic revelations, and X is chock full of them. Highly recommended unless you're a millennial, of course, but then again, you would be too busy taking self portraits for your myspace page to read this in the first place.

Our Generations Keep Improving

As a pre boomer, but with Gen X kids, Gordinier's book, Generation X Saves the World, has simply confirmed my pride in what this generation is already accomplishing and confidence that our future is in good hands. Gordinier has deftly married a quick wit with extensive research to show how his generation is continuing to uphold our country's productivity and entrepreneurial spirit. Anybody who is a gen xer or knows one will appreciate this book.

X-cellent

Having read the brilliantly cranky Details magazine piece that inspired the book, I figured Gordinier's full-length screed would be smart, really funny and bursting with intentionally button-pushing opinion. And it is. What I didn't expect is an ending that knocked me backwards with its hopefulness, embodied, in Gordinier's weirdly synaptic thinking, by the image of James Brown's battered knees. It's an amazing and moving leap. Highly recommended.