About the Book
Politics and culture, culture and politics. They've never been normal in America, but today they're weirder than ever. Millionaire populists like Bill O'Reilly and Michael Moore dominate a political scene spinning ever further from the real world; meanwhile, we look to bizarre experiments like Survivor for our daily dose of reality.
In this wonderfully acerbic tour through our increasingly unhinged culture, John Powers takes on celebrities and evangelicals, pundits and politicians, making sense of the mess for the rest of us. He shows how we have come to equate consumerism with patriotism and Fox News with objective journalism, and how our culture has become more polarized than ever even as we all shop at the same exact big-box stores. Insightful, hilarious, and critical of both liberals and conservatives, this is one of the smartest and most enjoyable books on American culture in years. From the Trade Paperback edition.
Review :
"Powers's "Sore Winners" is surreally comprehensive, laserously observant, 85 percent correct, and refreshingly unshrill."
--David Foster Wallace
"It's so hard, these days, to cut through the noise and nonsense and get it right. The polymath Powers has done it, with this grand confection of wit, insight and blazing, level-headed honesty. Delicious!"
--Ron Suskind, author of "A Hope in the Unseen" and "The Price of Loyalty
""A disturbing trip down memory lane that places the last four years in true, horrible relief. John Powers takes us into the funhouse - and then shows us a way out."
--Colson Whitehead, author of "John Henry Days" and "The Colossus of New York
""John Powers's "Sore Winners" is an angry but astonishingly good-humored and generous account of the degraded political and media culture of the Bush era. Powers has read everything, watched everything, and come out of his obsession with his sanity and sense of proportion intact. A true populist intellectual, he has a sharp eye for elitism, the cant of the powerful, and the paralyzing dullness of his own side. I can't imagine a better guide for anyone trying to get his head screwed on right and mount a free-swinging attack on the worst president and the crassest popular culture in recent American history."
--David Denby, "New Yorker" film critic and author of "American Sucker
""While reading this funny and engaging book, I felt the hair I had torn out reading David Brooks start to grow back."
--David Rees, author of "Get Your War On
""Here's a uniquely tart, perceptive, penetrating assessment of George W. Bush's unreal White House. It's taken more than three years, but American writers arefinally gaining the measure of how and why this Administration rules the way it does. John Powers gets it - and his passionate, serious, and at times hilarious book will make you wiser, even as it makes you wince at the state of the Union."
--Sean Wilentz, Dayton-Stockton Professor of History, Director of American Studies, Princeton University "From the Hardcover edition."
"Powers's "Sore Winners is surreally comprehensive, laserously observant, 85 percent correct, and refreshingly unshrill."
--David Foster Wallace
"It's so hard, these days, to cut through the noise and nonsense and get it right. The polymath Powers has done it, with this grand confection of wit, insight and blazing, level-headed honesty. Delicious!"
--Ron Suskind, author of "A Hope in the Unseen and "The Price of Loyalty
"A disturbing trip down memory lane that places the last four years in true, horrible relief. John Powers takes us into the funhouse - and then shows us a way out."
--Colson Whitehead, author of "John Henry Days and "The Colossus of New York
"John Powers's "Sore Winners is an angry but astonishingly good-humored and generous account of the degraded political and media culture of the Bush era. Powers has read everything, watched everything, and come out of his obsession with his sanity and sense of proportion intact. A true populist intellectual, he has a sharp eye for elitism, the cant of the powerful, and the paralyzing dullness of his own side. I can't imagine a better guide for anyone trying to get his head screwed on right and mount a free-swinging attack on the worst president and the crassest popular culture in recent American history."
--David Denby, "New Yorker film critic and author of "American Sucker
"While reading this funny and engaging book, I felt the hair I had torn out reading David Brooks start to grow back."
--David Rees, author of "Get Your War On
"Here's a uniquely tart, perceptive, penetrating assessment of George W. Bush's unreal White House. It's taken more than three years, but American writers are finallygaining the measure of how and why this Administration rules the way it does. John Powers gets it - and his passionate, serious, and at times hilarious book will make you wiser, even as it makes you wince at the state of the Union."
--Sean Wilentz, Dayton-Stockton Professor of History, Director of American Studies, Princeton University "From the Hardcover edition.
