[Given up: August 24, 2013]
Wikipedia is a wondrous tool, especially for fans. For instance, many times the inside cover a book will tell you what other books an author has written. But sometimes if different publishers are involved, that list can be lacking in a thing or two. Heck, sometimes even an author’s website is incomplete. Take a look at Coupland’s website.
For fiction It lists:
¯All Families Are Psychotic
¯Eleanor Rigby
¯Generation A
¯Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture
¯Girlfriend in a Coma
¯God Hates Japan
¯Hey Nostradamus!
¯JPod
¯Life After God
¯Microserfs
¯Miss Wyoming
¯Player One
¯Shampoo Planet
¯The Gum Thief
For non fiction, it lists:¯City of Glass
¯Extraordinary Canadians: Marshall McLuhan
¯Polaroids from the Dead
¯Terry
And then we have Other:
¯Highly Inappropriate Tales for Young People
Wikipedia lists Life After God and Highly Inappropriate… under short story collections, but otherwise they match on Fiction.
It’s the non-fiction that gives us trouble. With Wikipedia listing:
- Polaroids from the Dead (1996)
- Lara’s Book: Lara Croft and the Tomb Raider phenomenon (1998)
- City of Glass (2000) (updated version 2010)
- Souvenir of Canada (2002)
- School Spirit (2002)
- Souvenir of Canada 2 (2004)
- Terry (2005)
- Extraordinary Canadians: Marshall McLuhan (2009)
The two Souvenirs of Canada (which I own) and Lara’s Book (which I have seen many times) are not listed on Coupland’s site, (Perhaps he’s dissociating himself from a 15 year old book about a video game, but why not list Souvenirs of Canada?). And while School Spirit is technically a book of photography with a brief essay by Coupland, I wonder why he doesn’t mention that. I just interlibrary loaned School Spirit and Lara’s Book, so they’ll get write ups in the near future.
But then we get into dicey territory on Wikipedia: Drama and Screenplays
- Douglas Coupland: Close Personal Friend (1996)
- September 10 (2004)
- Inside the Light (2005)
- Souvenir of Canada (2005) (writing and narration)
- Everything’s Gone Green (2007)
- All Families Are Psychotic (2009)
- jPod (2008) (TV series)
Of these, I have seen Close Personal Friend, Souvenir of Canada [he even made a movie, why isn’t it on his website?], Everything’s Gone Green, and JPod.
But this is where I have to draw the limit on what I am willing to pursue from Coupland.
–September 10 appears to be a play that he performed for about week in England. There is no print version that I can see and I can’t even find any reviews of the play (it’s a hard title to search for).
–Inside the Light is a 4 minute short film made with himself and Robert Black. It was made in 2005 and for some reason…it is NOT on the internet. It has a listing on IMDB and yet the film itself doesn’t seem to exist anywhere. I found the entirety of Close Personal Friend online, but not this 4 minute video. So I’m giving up on it.
–All Families are Psychotic. The book was optioned for a film in 2006 and it was supposed to be released in 2007. But it is still listed as “in development.”
–God Hates Japan. This book was released only in Japan and, interestingly, the text is only in Japanese. I can’t seem to find it anywhere in the States (I guess Coupland’s not that important a writer). I see it for sale on Amazon.jp for￥1. Which is about 16 cents. But I can’t even imagine ordering something directly from japan. How much will that cost in shipping? [If the site is right, about $300. Can that possibly be right?]. So although I love the idea of ordering from amazon.jp, we can skip that.
So, the only book unaccounted for (aside from the three novels that I have yet to post about but will in the not too distant future) is Terry. Terry is another photo book with text by DC. I can’t find it at any libraries in the states. Which is shocking. But I’ll track it down one of these days. I’m not giving up on that one just yet,
Normally I bristle at not completing everything by an author. But I officially concede defeat on these four items.
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