I'm a big fan of Douglas Coupland, so I was delighted to discover he has a new book out,
JPod. From what I'd read it seemed this novel was a reworking of his classic
Microserfs, which is one of my favourite books of all time, but apart from the tech/nerd characters it's not really very similar. I initially found this a bit disappointing but I think that was my expectations rather than the quality of the book, and a few hundred pages later I was engrossed (and, at times, giggling on the tube). Not so much a reworking, more of a sequel I think. The book is brazenly self referential, from the opening line of part one:
"Oh god. I feel like a refugee from a Douglas Coupland novel."
Later in the book Coupland himself makes an appearance and promptly steals the protagonist's laptop so he can make his life into a book, it's easier to steal your life than to make stuff up he tells him! So leaning towards the ironically self referential, which is quite enjoyable in it's own right, but makes this not the ideal book to introduce yourself to Coupland if you've not read his books before.
