Agent Palmer

The cover reads “You’re holding a book about a company you’ve most likely never heard of. This company has no Steve Jobs, nor does it have a CEO who jet-skis with starlets. It’s only the 461st largest company on earth, but were it to vanish tomorrow our modern world would immediately be the worse for its absence.”

The book in question is Kitten Clone by Douglas Coupland as part of a series of authors in residence, this particular edition focusing on being “Inside Alcatel-Lucent.”

Shopping in Jail: Ideas, Essays, and Stories for the Increasingly Real Twenty-First Century by Douglas Coupland is eye-opening. While the writing and delivery is very Coupland, the medium this time is unique.

This collection of essays isn’t random. It all belongs together and reflects where Coupland and we as a human species were when this was published in the fall of 2013.

At some point in our lives, we read children’s books. Perhaps they were read to us, but the very nature of a “children’s book” conjures up clean white pages with simple stories and often beautiful illustrations.

Later on, we move away from children’s books. We put away anything remotely childish like a picture book, and we start reading for school. It’s the stuff without pictures and often without an interesting cover. If that didn’t kill your love of books and you’re among those of us still reading, you’re probably as far away from picture books as ever…