“Her essays glitter with witty and profound observations. . . . A genuinely free-thinker, Ugresic’s attachment to absurdity leads her down paths where other writers fear to tread.”—The IndependentOver the past three decades, Dubravka Ugresic has established herself as one of Europe’s greatest—and most entertaining—thinkers and creators, and it’s in her essays that Ugresic is at her sharpest. With laser focus, she pierces our pop culture, dissecting the absurdity of daily life with a wit and style that’s all her own.Whether it’s commentary on jaded youth, the ways technology has made us soft in the head, or how wrestling a hotel minibar into a bathtub is the best way to stick it to The Man, Ugresic writes with unmatched honesty and panache. KARAOKE CULTURE is full of candid, personal, and opinionated accounts of topics ranging from the baffling worldwide-pop-culture phenomena to the detriments of conformist nationalism. Sarcastic, biting, and, at times, even heartbreaking, this new collection of essays fully captures the outspoken brilliance of Ugresic’s insights into our modern world’s culture and conformism, the many ways in which it is ridiculous, and how (deep, deep down) we are all true suckers for it.AUTHOR BIO: Dubravka Ugresic is a writer of novels (Baba Yaga Laid An Egg, The Ministry of Pain), short story collections (Lend Me Your Character, In the Jaws of Life) and books of essays (Nobody’s Home, Thank You for Not Reading, The Culture of Lies). Born in the former Yugoslavia, Ugresic took a firm anti-nationalistic stand when war broke out in 1991, and she was proclaimed a “traitor,” a “public enemy,” and a “witch,” and was exposed to harsh and persistent media harassment. As a result, she left Croatia in 1993 and currently lives in Amsterdam.