Douglas Coupland is love. Really.

[phinnia]

The first Coupland I remember reading was probably Shampoo Planet. I have all of his fiction up to Miss Wyoming, and reread them every so often - Life After God is and always has been one of my Five Desert Island books - I'd say he's one of my primary influences, writingwise. Not deliberate. That's just the way things turned out. But I read All Families are Psychotic and was just ... disinterested. I couldn't finish it. So I was reluctant to pick up any of his later stuff for some reason, I don't know why. Anyone else read it? Does it strike you as different than his earlier stuff, was it just a bad week for me, or is it slow to start?
Just tore through Hey Nostradamus! like the pages were on fire. Beautiful stuff. I want my own copy, and I can't wait for Eleanor Rigby and jPod next year.
He'll be in Portland the 31st of January. I'm going. I'm not sure where yet - I assume Powells' - but I'm going, damnit. I want a personally signed copy of Life After God. (To go along with my generic signed first edition of Girlfriend in a Coma.)
And now I have a new Banana Yoshimoto. (Someday I hope to learn enough Japanese to read her stuff pre-translation.) She and Coupland go together somehow.
*dives into Goodbye Tsugumi* Yes, I have read three full books today. It happens sometimes.