etc.

Fired for reading metafilter, imagine!

I have this thing about Douglas Coupland. I’ve read every single one of his books and disliked maybe two. I enjoy his style, I tend to read his novels at a brakeneck pace, mostly because that’s the way they are written, and more often than not, I don’t find his stuff memorable (except Life After God, which is easily one of my favourite novels). After reading All Families are Psychotic last year, I hit saturation point with his dysfunctional characters absurdly wrestling their way through variously soporific situations, and I was ready for something different, something more, something insightful, something mature, whatever the hell that means.

Hey Nostradamus! is what I’ve been waiting for. It recounts the emotional aftermath of a high school massacre, reminiscent of Columbine, told in four parts from the points of view of four related characters. Coupland goes back to dealing in the stuff that made Life After God so compelling, namely God and religious fanatacism and morality and how and where all three intersect in the lives of his narrators. This is probably Coupland’s most emotionally charged, delicately woven novel, and I think he might have stumbled upon a winning formula because four days and one book later and I still can’t stop thinking about it.

Stamp-it-out has the potential to provide hours of enjoyment. My stamps are here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here. See what I mean? Hours.

Just for you, The World. [caterina]

The BBC News Style Guide (PDF) is riveting reading. If it wasn’t 92 pages long, I’d print it off and put it on my night stand even at the risk of absorbing it whole by osmosis.

I have the following books waiting to be released into the bookcrossing ethos. If you want one, let me know and I will send it to you. All I ask is that you keep the karmic flame alive by passing it on after you’re done (and of course make relevant journal entries and release notes).

· Martin Dressler, Steven Millhauser
· Destiny, Tim Parks
· The Powerbook, Jeanette Winterson
· Paris in Mind, Jennifer Lee
· Bacchus & Me, Jay McInerney
· The 25th Hour, David Benioff
· Realia, Will Aitken
· Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson
· The Ordinary White Boy, Brock Clarke
· Fresh Girls and Other Stories, Evelyn Wau
· Atonement, Ian McEwan
· The Woman who Walked into Doors, Roddy Doyle
· Milton’s Elements, Cordelia Strube

Update: Items scored off have already been requested.

I loved Amélie (probably even more than the next guy), but should it be doing this to Montmartre?

When Gentile searching just won’t do.

Just for you, The World. [caterina]

If you have any experience with the alternative press, you’ve probably heard of Paul Krassner. Krassner founded/edited The Realist, a satirical publication he started up in 1958 as a paean to emerging counterculture (the magazine was regularly published from 1958-1974 and briefly reincarnated in 1985). This book is a pithy, beatnik and hysterically funny memoir of those years, peppered with tales of Krassner’s maverick attitudes and feats of courage in defence of free speech and other civil liberties. It’s the first book by him that I’ve read and I can’t wait to get my hands on another.