Rating: 
Summary: Great Info in this book
Review: I agree with one of the other reviewers: this book describes the older end of the 13ers. I am a 13er (born in 70) and find this book to be an interesting and entertaining discussion about the differences between the generations.I see that many 13ers are offended at the book, and I can only think that these people take things WAY too personally. I also think that the book does a good job explaining how older generations don't want to give up control and have difficulty passing the torch to the up and coming generation.
Rating: 
Summary: Some great quotes in here...
Review: I bought this book when it first came out because, well, I don't remember why. I think it had something to do with Coupland's Generation X book and the whole notion of actually being a part of some 'generation'. This book seemed a good way to find out what that actually meant. And it did help me to understand the idea of a 'generation'. It's kind of a quirky book, with a curious layout of sidebars containing quotes from individuals, from books and movies, experts and other pop culture references and statistics, that seem to drive home the point the authors are striving toward. Unto that end it is a great package. The book is important as it gives a voice to a generation living life under the shadow of the 'Baby Boomers'. These are voices that appear fresh with time and it is great to see them in print. Revisiting this book almost ten years it seems, though, that the book was trying too hard. It got ahead of itseld in trying to sum up a generation (made up of individuals who didn't realize they were actually a generation!). It seems to me that it was (and still is) a marketing label, a way to define individuals in order to 'target' them. This, in my opinion, is the end result. Looking back at it and the 'hipness' of the narrative voice and the layout, they were trying to market the book without appearing to market the book, trying to be 'hip' without appearing to try to be hip. While the book does a remarkable job of compiling statistics and nailing down the 'whys' of 13th Gen (more accurate than the term Generation X) behavior, in the end the book doensn't help to explain me (born within the years 1961-81) too much at all. It is good for some nostalgia but it feels a bit outdated. It ultimately fades into oblivion with an overabundance of pop culture defintions, cliches and general and generic observations. It seems that we (or is it just me?) have moved on. I give it four stars for its readability, interesting statistics/quotes and its historical value.
Rating:
Summary: Some great quotes in here...
Review: I bought this book when it first came out because, well, I don't remember why. I think it had something to do with Coupland's Generation X book and the whole notion of actually being a part of some 'generation'. This book seemed a good way to find out what that actually meant. And it did help me to understand the idea of a 'generation'. It's kind of a quirky book, with a curious layout of sidebars containing quotes from individuals, from books and movies, experts and other pop culture references and statistics, that seem to drive home the point the authors are striving toward. Unto that end it is a great package. The book is important as it gives a voice to a generation living life under the shadow of the 'Baby Boomers'. These are voices that appear fresh with time and it is great to see them in print. Revisiting this book almost ten years it seems, though, that the book was trying too hard. It got ahead of itseld in trying to sum up a generation (made up of individuals who didn't realize they were actually a generation!). It seems to me that it was (and still is) a marketing label, a way to define individuals in order to 'target' them. This, in my opinion, is the end result. Looking back at it and the 'hipness' of the narrative voice and the layout, they were trying to market the book without appearing to market the book, trying to be 'hip' without appearing to try to be hip. While the book does a remarkable job of compiling statistics and nailing down the 'whys' of 13th Gen (more accurate than the term Generation X) behavior, in the end the book doensn't help to explain me (born within the years 1961-81) too much at all. It is good for some nostalgia but it feels a bit outdated. It ultimately fades into oblivion with an overabundance of pop culture defintions, cliches and general and generic observations. It seems that we (or is it just me?) have moved on. I give it four stars for its readability, interesting statistics/quotes and its historical value.
Rating:
Summary: Great book!!
Review: I loved this book. I bought the book many years ago and have recomended it to many friends. Most of them have liked the book very much. I usually do not like reading these types of books, but this one was outstanding. check it out!
Rating:
Summary: Great book!!
Review: I loved this book. I bought the book many years ago and have recomended it to many friends. Most of them have liked the book very much. I usually do not like reading these types of books, but this one was outstanding. check it out!
Rating:
Summary: Ego Stroking Poignancy
Review: I must admit, I don't read a whole lot of this genre of books (although I should, as they seem to be the most interesting for me), I must say that I was captivated by this book. I haven't read it lately, although I've been meaning to, I must say one of the things that makes it so appealing to our generation is that it doesn't insult us. It, infact, has a couple positive things to say to us... imagine that. Not that I don't think it's dead on in many areas, I'm just a bit leary, not knowing if I just want to accept that as right, in much the same way one wants to accept the horoscope or the fortune cookie as right, or that in an object stance, it actually hits the nail on the head. I don't believe there really is an object viewer in this deal, unless you find someone who's been living under a rock for their WHOLE LIVES. Even if you don't agree with it, you ought to read it. What can it hurt, eh?
Rating:
Summary: My Generation finally gets a label
Review: I read their previous book, Generations. I was, of course, most interested in their descriptations of my generation, 13er, and how much we were like Hemingway's Lost Generation, Mark Twain's Glided Generation, and George Washington's Liberty Generation.
Strauss & Howe do a wondeful job of getting past the bad reputation of my generation, and show why we are the way we are. America may not appreicate our strengths right now, but we'll be the ones that'll save this country when the next Big Crisis, like World War Two, happens.
Rating: 
Summary: Interesting, but too topical to be a good reference.
Review: I read this book when it was new -- I'm a younger 13er, and it was a gift from my brother, a much older 13er. I think it describes his classmates a lot more accurately than mine, which makes the book seem shortsighted now. Howe & Strauss have some interesting things to say about how Boomers viewed parenthood (the wave of demon-child movies they list is a surprising statistic that I still remember years later) but their examples are too specific to the time-period they wrote in. It talks a lot about the 90's recession and the Gulf War -- the book practically hums with pre-millenial tension. Many of their economic predictions for 13ers seem based on an instictive pessimism about the economy (the internet boom was years away from full power,) and they draw grand conclusions about the 13er psyche based on some sparse observations about controversial elements in pop culture. I believe it is also geared toward an older and white audience, people who were leery of gansta rap and grunge rock, and confused the quick judgements of the younger folk with thoughtlessness. (As I remember, they spend a little too much time on Nike's "Just Do It" slogan.)
The style of the book is interesting, especially when read as a companion piece to Douglas Coupland's books "Generation X" and (more relevantly,) "Microserfs." They invent a 13er gadfly who hacks into their book to post his comments (or maybe he's real, I don't know, but I doubt it) and the commentary becomes a sort of occasional parallel narrative, sometimes with arguments that undercut the points made in the main book. One can see a sort of fascination with the post-modern possibilities of the internet, which is even more dated than their references, but in a kind of cheering way. As I grow older, I agree with the "hacker" more than the authors' own voices; the 13ers are more difficult to define than they would have you believe.
This book would be a good read for anyone interested in how the 90's saw itself, or for a person born before 1961 who has *never* thought about the next-younger generation. The statistics are interesting, but their conclusions are so unsupported that I wouldn't consider this a serious reference work.
Rating:
Summary: A must-read for anyone with someone born between 1961 & 1981
Review: I stumbled onto this book back in 1994 at Barnes & Noble (I'm buying it for a friend right now) & it changed my life. It made me realize that everything that I thought was just happening to me was, in fact, a generational cancer. It also kept me from killing my father & wicked stepmother. Because of this book, I was able to crawl out of my pit of self-pity & I now work for a local state watchdog group & am actively involved in local politics. If you have someone in your family who falls into that age group & you're having a hell of a time relating to them, read this book. It explains a HELL of a lot....
Rating:
Summary: Lots of research, lots of it depressing, no magic bullet
Review: I thought the approach was terrific, with a 13th Gen "Crasher" breaking in with commentary on the "2boomers." That's exactly the way it happens in my family: I was born in 1963, the ultimate "oops" birth year that led to crime peaks and the SAT score valleys, and I crash the happy glow of my five older boomer siblings. I know this book is necessary, because when I started to tell a boomer friend of mine about it, she immediately, and without hesitation, tried to expropriate all the commentary as applying to herself. It will take many more books like this to get boomers out of self-absorption; that, or we'll have to wait until they're all dead or drooling. The only thing I missed was some guidepost to accepting our fate. It's helpful to learn there were generations past that also were designed to struggle, for instance, but more comforting words about how to enjoy it would have been welcome.
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