Sunday 10 February 2008

JPod - Douglas Coupland

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It has been a long time since I have sat and earnestly read a book but I rediscovered this delight over the weekend. The book in question being JPod by Douglas Coupland.

I discovered Coupland and JPod via the current CBS television series which I spotted in the torrent lists. I haven't read any of Coupland's books before but he appears to be something of an artist and commentator on modern culture and JPod carries on this tradition.

JPod the book is a satirical take on current geek-culture, be it the geek-culture of a few years ago, a life-time in todays technically advancing world. To plagiarise the wikipedia entry
Set in 2005, it concerns a group of video game programmers whose last names all begin with "J". They live and work in a development "pod", which they refer to as the "jPod", within a company that Coupland has described as "resembles, but legally no way is Electronic Arts", located in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. As in Coupland's other novels, the characters can be said to face issues that define their era.

The novel is presented in the form of diary entries maintained on a computer by the narrator, similar to a previous novel from Coupland, Microserfs (1995). In fact, JPod can be seen as "a 21st-century sibling" to this novel, in the "Google age". Microserfs centred on a group of friends working for Microsoft who started up their own company.

I can highly recommend it, it is funny, poignant and clever.

For some much more worthy and clever reviews I suggest you check out the links on Metacritic

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