I don't typically write about or recommed books before I've finished reading them. I'm a little less than a third of the way through John Jeremiah Sullivan's earth-shatteringly good Pulphead, but I probably started telling people to read it after about three paragraphs.
Sullivan's sense of narrative in nonfiction is among the best I've encountered. Most reviews I've read say Pulphead is reminiscent of David Foster Wallace's A Supposedly Fun Thing I'll Never Do Again. The comparison with DFW is fair, but I'm also comfortable putting Sullivan on par with other nonfiction heroes of mine like Joseph Mitchell and John McPhee--which is to say I think Sullivan is an historically significant journalist.
At any rate, I'm fully convinced at this point that I need not wait any longer to officially state that you should buy, read, and love this book at your earliest opportunity. Since I started reading it on Christmas day, I can say it was among the best books I (partially) read in 2011. Since I'll finish it in 2012, I can confidently say it sets an obscenely high bar for anything else I read this year.