Generation X by Douglas Coupland is a book that took my years to read. I initially thought “who the hell is this guy that thinks he is the spokeman for my generation?”. I was a little wrong, after the hype wore off I found that Douglas was not interested in being any kind of spokeperson but in fact the book is very groundbreaking for the snapshot of a people of a certain age in a certain time. Generation X follows some time in the life of three friends, Andy, Claire and Dag, young people with no responsibility and to much money for what they need. In the book Coupland has a great time by pigeon holeing a lot of social groups.

This book really made me a fan of Douglas Coupland as it is smart, witty and a lot of fun to read (and yes this is the best clich I could come up with).

As usual you can see more reviews by clicking the link.

From Publishers Weekly
Newcomer Coupland sheds light on an often overlooked segment of the population: “Generation X,” the post-baby boomers who must endure “legislated nostalgia (to force a body of people to have memories they do not actually own)” and who indulge in “knee-jerk irony (the tendency to make flippant ironic comments as a reflexive matter of course . . . ).” These are just two of the many terse, bitterly on-target observations and cartoons that season the margins of the text. The plot frames a loose Decameron -style collection of “bedtime stories” told by three friends, Dag, Andy and Claire, who have fled society for the relative tranquility of Palm Springs. They fantasize about nuclear Armageddon and the mythical but drab Texlahoma, located on an asteroid, where it is forever 1974. The true stories they relate are no less strange: Dag tells a particularly haunting tale about a Japanese businessman whose most prized possession, tragically, is a photo of Marilyn Monroe flashing. These stories, alternatively touching and hilarious, reveal the pain beneath the kitschy veneer of 1940s mementos and taxidermied chickens.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Reason, Nathan Shedroff
Don’t read the story itself, but the stories within it. We build culture by telling stories to each other, and the characters in this novel successfully build their own culture in reaction to the one around them in a particularly interesting, inspiring, and emotional way.

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