Bit Rot: stories + essays

by Douglas Coupland Narrated by Graham Rowat

Overview

A thought-provoking, binge-worthy new collection of essays, stories, and musings from Douglas Coupland, Bit Rot explores the different ways in which twentieth-century notions of the future are being shredded, and it is a literary gem of the digital age "Bit rot" is a term used in digital archiving to describe the way digital files can spontaneously and quickly decompose. As Douglas Coupland writes, "Bit rot also describes the way my brain has been feeling since 2000, as I shed older and weaker neurons and connections and enhance new and unexpected ones." Bit Rot the book is a fascinating meditation on the ways in which humanity tries to make sense of our shifting consciousness. Coupland, just like the Internet, mixes forms to achieve his ends. Short fiction is interspersed with essays on all aspects of modern life. The result is addictively satisfying for Coupland's established fanbase hungry for his observations about our world, and a revelation to new readers of his work. For almost three decades, his unique pattern recognition has powered his fiction, his phrase-making, and his visual art. Every page of Bit Rot is full of wit, surprise, and delight. Reading Bit Rot feels a lot like bingeing on Netflix.you can't stop with just one.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

"Douglas Coupland is a media theorist, artist, writer, and designer. He's also wickedly funny, which makes his thoughts on modernity all the more biting and enjoyable. Bit Rot...shows off all sides of Coupland's work without ever losing his sardonic edge.... The book feels like an ongoing conversation with a hilarious, intelligent friend...an engaging, thought-provoking look at the modern age through the thoughts of one smart, funny man.” —Noah Cruickshank, Shelf Awareness

"Douglas Coupland is back, with a tasty collection of bingeable treats for a new generation." —Joshua Chaplinsky, Lit Reactor

"Bit Rot offers priceless insights.... Few people are better [than Douglas Coupland] at explaining the ramifications of the digital era." —Jane Ciabattari, BBC

“[Douglas Coupland’s] voice is undiminished after more than a quarter century in the cultural spotlight . . . a writer, thinker and artist utterly perfect of and for his time.” —Robert J. Wiersema, National Post
 
“[A] respected futurist, bestselling author, prolific visual artist . . . [Bit Rot] is classic Coupland – created intentionally for the Internet age.” —Marsha Lederman, The Globe and Mail

"We should really pay attention to Coupland. His eye is so firmly on the ball he’s virtually clairvoyant." —Nicholas Lezard, The Guardian

"[Coupland] is at his best when he muses on new opportunities and challenges presented by technology." —The National

“Unremittingly famous for defining a generation, Douglas Coupland is, himself, a creative whirl.” —The New York Times
  
“A contemporary prophet.” —The Sunday Times
 
“A brilliant social commentator.” —Elle
 
“A shrewd observer of modernity.” —The Observer
 
“A writer, thinker and artist utterly perfect of and for his time.” —National Post
 
“We should really pay attention to Coupland. His eye is so firmly on the ball he’s virtually clairvoyant.” —The Guardian

“An eclectic and thought-provoking collection . . . [Bit Rot] reveals the breadth and depth of Coupland's writing.” —Kirkus Reviews

"The current landscape, the mindless and endless landslide of mass culture versus individual vulnerability - no one sees these or gets to the heart of them quite like Coupland." —Ali Smith

"In the future, if people are curious about what it was like to live in our times, in the early twenty-first century, they will do well to read Douglas Coupland." —Yann Martel

Library Journal

04/01/2017
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

Kirkus Reviews

2016-12-18
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.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940171141776
Publisher:	Recorded Books, LLC
Publication date:	03/07/2017
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Before We Begin...
(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Bit Rot"
by .
Copyright © 2017 Douglas Coupland.
Excerpted by permission of Penguin Publishing Group.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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