Coupland, Douglas

• Polaroids from the Dead (6)

  • This is a series of short stories about Coupland's travels and early life. There is very little continuity here, and the quality varies wildly. Nowhere near as insightful and fascinating as his other book, but there are a couple of interesting stories in here (like his vivid description of a Dead concert) that make it worth finding on a bargain shelf.

• Microserfs (9)

  • I think I've finally figured out why I liked Crichton's "Disclosure" so much...I'm a sucker for novels written in the style of a daily diary. Something about the intimate yet completely banal aspects of another person's life is fascinating to me. I can't explain it, but at least now you know one of my biases.

    Anyway, as you might have guessed, this is a fictional diary of a man who grew up a geek, worked at Microsoft for a while, then left with friends to help start up a company in Silicon Valley. So many aspects of his life are frighteningly familiar to me (and anyone else who has worked much in the hard sciences, either in industry or graduate school) that I had a hard time putting this book down. Lots of truly funny observations, touching moments (the meeting with BarCode near the end is a must read for anyone who's ever MUD-ed) and fascinating characters (albeit a few were too one-dimensional for me). This is a great book, and I've noticed lately (Summer 1997) that it is showing up in hardback on a lot of bargain shelves.

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