(FORTUNE Magazine) – Once upon a time, way back in the late 1980s, I considered myself hip. I had a sense of what was going on below 14th Street in Manhattan; I heard Lou Reed and John Cale sing a rock opera for Andy Warhol; my friends and I met regularly at a downtown bar called Cafe Loup--our own version of Friends, circa 1988.

Then, around the time I went to work for FORTUNE, something changed. Now I'm 34, and when I listen to the radio I have no clue who the bands are; my latest nights are spent at the office; and most of my friends have children.

That's why I'm grateful for alt.culture (HarperCollins, $17), a great brush-up course for anyone who's interested in pop culture but has too much of a life to watch MTV 24 hours a day. From "acid jazz" to "Zippies," alt.culture offers cogent, funny descriptions of the trends and trendy people of the Nineties. Who and what are they? A sampling includes Jagermeister, student-faculty sex bans, veganism, Usenet, Prozac, Richard Linklater, videogames, LUGs, Kim Deal, and even retro products like Vick's Vapo-Rub (newly popular because it allegedly heightens the buzz produced by the drug Ecstasy) and Dr. Scholl's Exercise Sandals (given another life in the Nineties when sported by runway supermodels). If you don't recognize all these things or didn't know that they were cool, join the club: I had never heard of a quarter of the 900 entries.

Don't try to mine alt.culture for a deep, new understanding of the contemporary world. For one thing, you already know some of the broad trends that make up the zeitgeist of the Nineties: computers, the Internet, Japanese comic books and graphics, Quentin Tarantino movies, Seattle coffeehouses and grunge music, hip-hop fashion and music, and infantilization (baby-doll dresses, barrettes, and the queen of the nymphs, Drew Barrymore).

Besides, trying to categorize a generation with sweeping brush strokes is a waste of time. The authors--Steven Daly, 35, and Nathaniel Wice, 27--take their shot in a blessedly short introduction. Today's twentysomethings, they write, are engaged in "a salutary reaction against the Go-Go '80s...If there was any commonality among the tribe dubbed Generation X, it was a distrust of celebrity culture in all its forms, from rock mythmaking to infotainment gushing." And yet, "the conformity of nonconformity looks like it will set the tone for the rest of the decade." As they write elsewhere, "'Join us and become unique'--it's the paradoxical cry of an over-the-counter culture in which corporate advertisers pass as alternative." (Take, for example, those ads for Red Dog--beer that tries to pass as a microbrew but really comes from Miller Brewing.)

How to use this book: First, hide it in a dresser drawer, or keep it under the bathroom sink--after all, it would be terribly uncool for anyone to know you're catching up on cool. Secretly peruse the book for delectable details, like the individual entries sprinkled about this page. Then spring your newly gained knowledge on the world. People will notice and appreciate your more trendy vocabulary. My conversations will be peppered with such delicious terms as jellies ("soft, edible-looking fisherman's sandals"), huffing ("getting high from inhaling the toxic fumes of legal household or industrial chemicals"), figure engineering (Wonderbra-type apparel), Stussy ("the most influential street-fashion brand of the '90s"), and, my personal favorite, celebutots (kids whose fame is built entirely upon their being celebrity offspring).

Once you've brought yourself up to cultural snuff, how do you stay au courant? Most entries are accompanied by the address of a Website or an E-mail mailing list, so that you can get more, and more current, information electronically. Also, the authors have created a Website of their own, where they promise updates to online addresses, pages of links to other Websites, and additional info on the book.

Unfortunately, the alt.culture Website has been delayed, leaving most of us with two choices: one, we can read the book and pretend to be in the know, hoping that nothing terribly trendy happens in the next couple of months; or two, just accept our place as cultural illiterati. Me? I'm hoping they get that Website up real soon.

REPORTER ASSOCIATE Erin M. Davies