I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts

Drive-by Essays on American Dread, American Dreams

By Mark Dery
(Univ Of Minnesota Press, Hardcover, 9780816677733, 304pp.)

Publication Date: April 2012

Categories: Essays, Popular Culture - General

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Mark Dery is a cultural critic and journalist whose writing has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Rolling Stone, Wired, Cabinet, Bookforum, and Boing Boing, among other publications. His books include Flame Wars: The Discourse of Cyberculture; The Pyrotechnic Insanitarium: American Culture on the Brink; and the widely republished pamphlet Culture Jamming. He is writing a biography of Edward Gorey.

Bruce Sterling is a science fiction author whose novels include Distraction, Zeitgeist, Holy Fire, and The Caryatids.

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"Mark Dery’s cultural criticism is the stuff that nightmares are made of. He’s a witty and brilliant tour guide on an intellectual journey through our darkest desires and strangest inclinations. You can’t look away even if you want to." —Mark Frauenfelder and David Pescovitz, Boing Boing

"Mark Dery is gifted with sanity, humor, learning, and a prose style as keen as a barber’s razor. He applies those qualities to a trustworthy and entertaining analysis of the lunatic fringe, which constitutes an ever-larger portion of the discourse in America today." —Luc Sante

"Do not turn squeamish from the many considerations of death that lurk within—vampires, tombs, disease, corruption of many varieties. Mark Dery’s restless and stylish essay is concerned with one thing only—what it means to be alive in America." —Richard Rodriguez, author of Brown: The Last Discovery of America

"The bebop rhythms of Mark Dery’s prose reflect an intellectual excitement that is rare among contemporary cultural essayists. Reading him is like ingesting a powerful jolt of espresso." —Ron Rosenbaum, author of Explaining Hitler and The Shakespeare Wars

"Always provocative, often humorous, Dery has a keen eye for absurdity, tragedy, and everything in between. " —Publishers Weekly

"Mark Dery is an intellectually challenging writer. He makes few concessions to his readers. He has high expectations...He is witty. He is amusing. He is stimulating. The essays will force you to examine ideas you more than likely have never thought about before." —Blogcritics.org

"What makes Dery such an appealing tour guide through all these bad thoughts of his is that he's right there with us, trying to answer the tough questions, and willing to turn his probing mind and eye on himself, too." —Phoenix New Times

"Mark Dery has just published I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts: Drive-by Essays on American Dread, American Dreams, a long-awaited compendium of his oft-brutal, usually funny, and always-brilliant writings on the curious, bizarre, and downright dark crevices of our culture. Look no further than this new book for your next monstrous dose of Dery." —Boing Boing

"Whether you're starting your spring break or just slacking off work for another week, there's no better way to wile away your idle hours than reading through Mark Dery's new collection of essays I Must Not Think Bad Thoughts." —Reason