X Saves the World (2008)

The notion of a manifesto would cause most skeptical Generation Xers to turn up their formerly pierced noses. But one-time EW senior writer Jeff Gordinier makes an unironic claim that today's thirty- (and forty-) somethings eschew sweeping changes in favor of thousands of small improvements to everyday life. Internet innovations like YouTube and Netflix (created by Xers) allow tiny ideas to swell globally, while subversive humor from the likes of Jon Stewart and The Onion deflates BS. In the end, Gordinier's vibrant chronology of '90s culture, X Saves the World, rings true to anyone who was moved by Nirvana or exhilarated by Pulp Fiction. B+