Book excerpt: This treasure of a book gives us a vivid and captivating evocation of the social, cultural, and spiritual tenor of the twentieth century, decade by remarkable decade. Henry Allen--veteran feature writer and editor at the Washington Post--reminds us of just how it was: "the champagne disenchantment of the tuxedo twenties. Husbands who lost Depression jobs and hid in their houses for shame, the October morning energy of the postwar forties, the dusty heat of fifties television sets, the smell of Vitalis on men's hair, women in gloves that felt sexy touching your skin, men who whistled (with trills) and wore hats tipped to one side, the barefoot LSD weddings when the universe seemed a conspiracy in everyone's favor. . . . " Each of these ten chapters is a virtual time capsule written with keen intelligence, feeling, and an uncanny sense of the essential experiences of the era: the unexpected, idiosyncratic sights, sounds, occasions, and events that defined not just the time but the way we remember it. This is a book of myriad pleasures--a reminder, as we plunge headlong into the future, of the richness and importance of our past.