Bit Rot

January 1, 2017
An eclectic and thought-provoking collection of ephemera from Coupland (Worst. Person. Ever., 2014, etc.).The author admits in his introduction that he's wobbling unsteadily into the future with the title, a term used to describe how digital files decompose. "It also describes the way my brain has been feeling since 2000, as I shed older and weaker neurons and connections and create and enhance new and unexpected ones." This substantial collection of more than 65 stories and essays reveals the breadth and depth of Coupland's writing in a way that his recent novels have not. In addition to several acidic short stories, Coupland also contributes numerous essays on technology and the way it changes our culture, travelogues, memoirs, and satires--essentially, something for anyone who has even the slightest interest in this singular cultural voice. Short stories include works like "The Short, Brutal Life of the Channel Three News Team," about a woman whose mother guns down a news crew, and "Superman and the Kryptonite Martinis," which finds the iconic hero swilling drinks in a gin mill with Yoda. Some of the more wildly experimental pieces land flat, like a television pilot about George Washington being teleported to the future or an excerpt from Search, an arty abstract regarding what people search for online, written during an artist's residency at the technology behemoth Google. Still others are inelegant satires like "An App Called Yoo." But more often, Coupland sticks the landing, like this prescient observation from one of his technology columns: "To summarize: Everyone, basically, wants access to and control over what you will become, both as a physical and metadata entity. We are also on our way to a world of concrete walls surrounding any number of niche beliefs." A surprisingly personal meander around the mind of Generation X's elder statesman.

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April 1, 2017

Writer and artist Coupland's (Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture) collection comprises brief essays and stories of previously unpublished content, which alternate among treatments of everyday life in the postmodern era and are essentially ruminations on topics as varied as the author's childhood, politics, religion, and what it means to live in the 21st century. The fictional chapters can be at times jarring, at others playful, but overall this work succeeds in drawing the reader into tiny Couplandian worlds. What Coupland does best is keep the reader engrossed and off balanced, so that one never really finds a comfortable spot from which to observe both the horrors and sorrows of the first decade of the 21st century. Since the timeframe of these meditative works includes 2005 to present, the content reflects the tumultuous decade for which the seasoned and prolific writer expounds. The flow from nonfiction to fictional chapters represents a fine example of a postmodern narrative. VERDICT This work will ultimately be of most interest to die-hard Coupland fans. [See Prepub Alert, 10/3/2016.]--Jim Hahn, Univ. Lib., Univ. of Illinois, Urbana

Copyright 2017 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2017
Smart, prolific, and funny, Coupland (Worst. Person. Ever., 2014) has collected dozens of essays and short stories, post-2005, many of which were previously published elsewhere, into a fine anthology filled with his distinctive brand of breezy, poignant commentary. Coupland has maintained his knack for keeping his finger firmly planted on the zeitgeist, and, despite his apocalyptic worldview, he manages to retain an optimism based on human ingenuity. Humanity is capable of miraculous things, as long as we don't first destroy the planet. There is a lot of content here, possibly too much. Some entries are rather profound, but others are more ephemeral, disposable, and read like blog posts, which, unfortunately, dilutes the collection. On the upside, Coupland takes on the media-saturated world of celebrities, cults, apps, trends, Google, globalization, drones, pharmaceuticals, algorithms, metadata, and data, lots of data. His essays evoke fellow Canadian Marshall McLuhan, as well as Andy Warhol, as he addresses the ramifications of new media. The volume's title is also the name of an exhibition of Coupland's visual work, currently on display in Munich.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2017, American Library Association.)