Generation A is set in the near future in a world where bees are extinct, until five unconnected people all around the world— in the United States, Canada, France, New Zealand, and Sri Lanka—are all stung. Their shared experience unites them in ways they never could have imagined.
Generation A mirrors Coupland’s debut novel, 1991’s Generation X. It explores new ways of storytelling in a digital world. Like much of Coupland’s writing, it occupies the perplexing hinterland between optimism about the future and everyday apocalyptic paranoia. Imaginative, inventive, and fantastically entertaining, Generation A is his most ambitious work to date.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
Douglas Coupland is Canadian, born on a Canadian Air Force base near Baden-Baden, Germany, in 1961. In 1965 his family moved to Vancouver, Canada, where he continues to live and work. Coupland has studied art and design in Vancouver, Canada, Milan, Italy and Sapporo, Japan. His first novel, Generation X, was published in March of 1991. Since then he has published eleven novels and several non-fiction books in 35 languages and most countries on earth. He has written and performed for the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford, England, and in 2001 resumed his practice as a visual artist, with exhibitions in spaces in North America, Europe, and Asia. 2006 marks the premiere of the feature film Everything's Gone Green, his first story written specifically for the screen and not adapted from any previous work. A TV series (13 one-hour episodes) based on his novel, "jPod" premiered on the CBC in January, 2008.
HARJ
TRINCOMALEE, SRI LANKA
How can we be alive and not wonder about the stories we use to knit together this place we call the world? Without stories, our universe is merely rocks and clouds and lava and blackness. It's a village scraped raw by warm waters leaving not a trace of what existed before.
Imagine a tropical sky, ten miles high and a thousand years off on the horizon. Imagine air that feels like honey on your forehead; imagine air that comes out of your lungs cooler than when it entered.
Imagine hearing a dry hiss outside your office building's window. Imagine walking to the window's louvered shutters and looking out and seeing the entire contents of the world you know flow past you in a surprisingly soothing, quiet sluice of gray mud: palm fronds, donkeys, the local Fanta bottler's Jeep, unlocked bicycles, dead dogs, beer crates, shrimper's skiffs, barbed wire fences, garbage, ginger flowers, oil sheds, Mercedes tour buses, chicken delivery vans.
...corpses
...plywood sheets
...dolphins
...a moped
...a tennis net
...laundry baskets
...a baby
...baseball caps
...more dead dogs
...corrugated zinc
Imagine a space alien is standing with you there in the room as you read these words. What do you say to him? Her? It? What was once alive is now dead. Would aliens even know the difference between life and death? Perhaps aliens experience something else just as unexpected as life. And what would that be? What would they say to themselves to plaster over the unexplainable cracks of everyday existence, let alone a tsunami? What myths or lies do they hold true? How do they tell stories?
Now look back out your window -- look at what the gods have barfed out of your subconscious and into the world -- the warm, muddy river of dead cats, old women cauled in moist saris, aluminum propane canisters, a dead goat, flies that buzz unharmed just above the fray.
...picnic coolers
...clumps of grass
...a sunburnt Scandinavian pederast
...white plastic stacking chairs
...drowned soldiers tangled in gun straps
And then what do you do -- do you pray? What is prayer but a wish for the events in your life to string together to form a story -- something that makes some sense of events you know have meaning.
And so I pray.
Copyright © 2009 by Douglas Coupland
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Shipping:
FREE
Within U.S.A.
Shipping:
FREE
Within U.S.A.
Seller: SecondSale, Montgomery, IL, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. Item in good condition. Textbooks may not include supplemental items i.e. CDs, access codes etc. Seller Inventory # 00075616593
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: ThriftBooks-Atlanta, AUSTELL, GA, U.S.A.
Paperback. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.6. Seller Inventory # G1439157022I3N00
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: ThriftBooks-Reno, Reno, NV, U.S.A.
Paperback. Condition: Good. No Jacket. Pages can have notes/highlighting. Spine may show signs of wear. ~ ThriftBooks: Read More, Spend Less 0.6. Seller Inventory # G1439157022I3N00
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: The Maryland Book Bank, Baltimore, MD, U.S.A.
paperback. Condition: Good. Reprint. The corners are bent. Used - Good. Seller Inventory # 6-P-4-0279
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Better World Books, Mishawaka, IN, U.S.A.
Condition: Good. Used book that is in clean, average condition without any missing pages. Seller Inventory # 5354412-20
Quantity: 2 available
Seller: Better World Books: West, Reno, NV, U.S.A.
Condition: Very Good. Former library book; may include library markings. Used book that is in excellent condition. May show signs of wear or have minor defects. Seller Inventory # GRP95824176
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: Half Price Books Inc., Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
paperback. Condition: Very Good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!. Seller Inventory # S_387183120
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: HPB-Diamond, Dallas, TX, U.S.A.
Paperback. Condition: Very Good. Connecting readers with great books since 1972! Used books may not include companion materials, and may have some shelf wear or limited writing. We ship orders daily and Customer Service is our top priority!. Seller Inventory # S_405797895
Quantity: 1 available
Seller: One Planet Books, Columbia, MO, U.S.A.
paperback. Condition: Good. Reprint. Ships in a BOX from Central Missouri! May not include working access code. Will not include dust jacket. Has used sticker(s) and some writing and/or highlighting. UPS shipping for most packages, (Priority Mail for AK/HI/APO/PO Boxes). Seller Inventory # 001284949U
Quantity: 7 available
Seller: BookEnds Bookstore & Curiosities, Ojai, CA, U.S.A.
Soft cover. Condition: As New. Softcover includes Reading Group Guide, 297 pages plus. The exception to the condition is a remainder mark on the bottom of the text block. Seller Inventory # 007441
Quantity: 1 available