Douglas Coupland

Finally a set of stories morbid and whimsical enough to live up to Edward Gorey's Gashlycrumb Tinies! Eschewing rhyme for simple prose with witty overtones, Coupland succeeds in making readers laugh and cringe simultaneously as they are exposed to the morbid mind of a murderous juice box and the trials of a vodka-addicts mini-van. He covers all of the major issues within society, from body image to willful negligence, in this one short volume that is further illuminated by Roumieu's brightly show more morbid drawings. Definitely not for children - unless you want them to get a real glimpse of how messed up society really is! show less

Raymond Gunt works in TV. Not a particularly glamorous job, as a B Unit cameraman, but he likes to pretend he is much more than that. In fact, Raymond is the most obnoxious, arrogant, cruel and hateful man you would never want to meet. His narcissistic ex-wife gets him a job on an American reality TV show, on an island in the Pacific, which he thinks will be a doddle - film lots of hip and attractive young people, whilst soaking up the sun himself and watching them suffer. All Raymond has to show more do is find himself an assistant (who outshines Raymond in every way possible, and is one of the funniest characters in the book), get on a flight, film young people eating bugs, and get paid a whacking great amount of money for doing as little as he can possibly get away with.

Since Raymond is an utterly horrible human being, you know (and hope) it will not go well. And it doesn't. At every possible turn Raymond runs afoul of the law, his colleagues, his ex-wife, the US military, and the natives of every country he sets foot in. As Lemony Snickett would say, Raymond runs into a series of unfortunate events, many of his own doing, a few coincidences, and one or two foul plots against him from an ever decreasing circle of friends.

There are some hilarious moments in this book, and I laughed aloud at some of the things that befell Raymond. At first you think that Coupland is a little off with his interpretation of modern day culture, reality TV and celebrity, as some of the things that happen are unrealistic and downright bizarre. However, once you carry on reading you do realise that he has captured the essence of the desperation that success and fame brings out in people. This book does contain a lot of sexual references/innuendo, foul language and aggression - so no different from a late night reality TV show to be honest! show less

Picked this one up on a whim, because quite frankly it looked hilarious. And it really, REALLY is.

There are seven stories in this small collection, each of which tells a rather disturbing story ranging – from a juice box that kills other juice boxes, to an undead substitute teacher who eats students, to an action figure with PTSD. Absolutely hilarious.

I really don’t know how Coupland and Roumieu came up with it, but these stories are both completely original and brilliant. While the show more stories do have the structure that you would expect from a children’s story, and all center around children or teens, these are definitely geared towards adults. They have a very dark sense of humour that wouldn’t necessarily be fully appreciated by younger readers (and is, I am sure, something that some parents wouldn’t want their kids to be exposed to).

I’ve never been exposed to Roumieu’s artwork before, and I have to say that it’s all quite lovely, in a rather dark and disturbing way. The collection quite honestly wouldn’t have been nearly as good without Roumieu’s illustrations to really create and enhance the atmosphere that was being brought across through Coupland’s writing. In fact, I would say that they are my favourite parts about this book – oh, they DO make me laugh so much.

As far as the stories go, there are some that I did enjoy more than others – “Sandra, the Truly Dreadful Babysitter” and “Mr. Fraser, the Undead Substitute Teacher” were my favourites. Especially the one about Sandra – she is a horrid babysitter who set a kid’s house on fire, made her charges shoplift and left a kid in the middle of a dark graveyard. Awesome.

There was only one story that I felt fell a little bit flat – “Cindy, the Terrible Role Model.” While the other characters in the other stories were amusing in their evilness, Cindy just seemed extremely malicious for the full story, which took away from the humour that could’ve been there.

The Bottom Line
Overall, these are seven absolutely hilarious tales. Highly recommended. show less

Dan Underwood is one of many overworked, under-personal-lived “Microserfs”: coders and testers and programmers and others at Microsoft who crank out the code that bring Microsoft products to life. He’s 26, living in a “geek house” with five roommates, and not sure where to go to get himself a life. Then one of the roommates, Michael, moves to California, the land of technological opportunity. Will the others cling to security at Microsoft or make a leap into the unknown?

This is one show more of my all-time favourite books. I picked it up at the age of 12 simply because my dad’s hardcover edition had a Lego man on the cover (it is relevant to the plot), and I fell in love. It’s told through diary entries and shot through with sarcasm but also deep contemplation and philosophy.

It was a little strange to be reading it now, because I am now older than all of the protagonists (not Dan’s parents, but all of the core characters), yet at the same time they are still “older” than I am (and they would be, if they existed in real life). And because I am that much older, the really sad bits of the story hit me that much harder, even though I knew they were coming).

Also, the technological and social elements of this book feel almost trapped in amber: the book feels so innovative and cutting-edge, yet at the same time incredibly dated. The internet is only just starting to become a big deal—heck, area codes didn’t even have digits other than 1 or 0 in the middle—and there is not a word about smartphones, streaming music, or YouTube. Not that I expected there to be, of course. But I love reading books at the cutting edge of technology long after that edge has been blunted. It feels like time travel in a way.

I loved this book, but I know it is probably not for everyone. show less