Age of Earthquakes A Toolbox for the Extreme Present

Raymond Gunt likes to think of himself as a pretty decent guy—he believes in karma, and helping his fellow man, and all that other good stuff. Sure, he can be foulmouthed, occasionally misogynistic, and can just generally rub people the wrong way—through no fault of his own! So with all the positive energy hes creating, its a little perplexing to consider the recent downward spiral his life has taken…Could the universe be trying to tell him something?

A B-unit cameraman with no immediate employment prospects, Gunt decides to accept his ex-wife Fionas offer to shoot a Survivor-style reality show on an obscure island in the Pacific. With his upwardly failing sidekick, Neal, in tow, Gunt somehow suffers multiple comas and unjust imprisonment, is forced to reenact the “Angry Dance” from the movie Billy Elliot, and finds himself at the center of a nuclear war—among other tribulations and humiliations.

A razor-sharp portrait of a morally bankrupt, gleefully wicked modern man, Worst. Person. Ever. is a side-splittingly funny and gloriously filthy new novel from acclaimed author Douglas Coupland. A deeply unworthy book about a dreadful human being with absolutely no redeeming social value, its guaranteed to brighten up your day.

 

“Using easy-to-grasp graphics and revealing before-and-after photos, [Gore] shows how glaciers and ice shelves are disappearing all over the globe with alarming speed, pointing to profound climate changes and increased danger from rising sea levels in the near future. He writes measured, matter-of-fact prose, letting facts and trends speak for themselves–but, suggesting that “what happens locally has worldwide consequences,” —School Library Journal, starred review

“The plot is an unbridled romp. Absurd scenarios (Gunt is forced, at one point, to perform a Billy Elliott dance sequence on a US military base) are juggled with ludicrous stock characters — including a fabulously naive homeless man, Neal, who is recruited as Gunts sidekick. The whole roiling mishmash eventually falls neatly into place for the novels Armageddon in the Pacific.

In its picaresque extravagance, the novel resembles a globetrotting, 21st-century version of Voltaires Candide — Neal, in fact, is an uncanny double of ­Voltaires wide-eyed protagonist. And in place of the 1755 Lisbon earthquake (to which Voltaires Pangloss responds with renewed optimism about the rightness of everything in the world), we have, instead, the US military merrily ­detonating an atomic weapon over the Pacific to clear the oceans mass of plastic debris. “I know nuclear warheads have a bum rap in our ­culture,” remarks Gunt. “But to watch one exploding in real life is insanely f****** awesome.”

It is hard to describe, out of context, quite how funny Couplands novel can be. A lot of its humour springs from the relentless hideousness of Gunt. And yet, increasingly, it is the very fact that Gunt — in Voltairean fashion — is the only character in Couplands menagerie who can see the awfulness of the human apocalypse around him that makes the book so compelling. Couplands eye for the strange, mesmerising wonder of modernity is being put, more than ever, to extremely dark use here. The fact that it is all so demented — and so frequently, belly-achingly hilarious — only makes that darkness all the more impressive.”

—The Sunday Times

 

“Provocative and entertaining.”—The Daily Mail

 

“Riotous, frequently very funny.”—The Independent

 

“Filthy and funny.”—TimeOut London

 

“Clever bits of observational humour … his best book in recent years.”—The Toronto Star

 

“An entry - a fun one - in a personal, pop-cult canon of its own.”—Toronto Globe and Mail

“[Raymond Gunt] is a fabulous monster, with nothing and no one safe from his vitriol. Raymond torments the obese, faces multiple incarcerations, makes leering advances at every woman crossing his path, and plays a role in a potentially globe-threatening nuclear event… Coupland skewers a pop worlds growing insensibilities, and his protagonist is a charming villain whom readers will likely root for, even as hes insulting them.”—Publishers Weekly (starred)

“Its hard to imagine Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy fans wouldnt feel at home in this absurdist British-flavored comedy.”—Erin McReynolds, American Short Fiction

 

“In Gunt, Coupland has created one of his most memorable characters to date, memorable for all the wrong reasons. He's ignorant, crass, self-absorbed, and you're going to love him.”—Joshua Chaplinsky, LitReactor

 

“This evil amalgam of Larry David and Mr. Bean endures misfortunes hilarious, disgusting, and well-deserved.”—Boris Kachka, New York Magazine

 

A highly provocative, mindbending, beautifully designed, and visionary look at the landscape of our rapidly evolving digital era.
50 years after Marshall McLuhan's ground breaking book on the influence of technology on culture inThe Medium is the Massage, Basar, Coupland and Obrist extend the analysis to today, touring the world that s redefined by the Internet, decoding and explaining what they call the 'extreme present'.
THE AGE OF EARTHQUAKES is a quick-fire paperback, harnessing the images, language and perceptions of our unfurling digital lives. The authors offer five characteristics of the Extreme Present (see below); invent a glossary of new words to describe how we are truly feeling today; and mindsource images and illustrations from over 30 contemporary artists. Wayne Daly s striking graphic design imports the surreal, juxtaposed, mashed mannerisms of screen to page. It s like a culturally prescient, all-knowing email to the reader: possibly the best email they will ever read.
Welcome to THE AGE OF EARTHQUAKES, a paper portrait of Now, where the Internet hasn t just changed the structure of our brains these past few years, it s also changing the structure of the planet. This is a new history of the world that fits perfectly in your back pocket.
30+ artists contributions: With contributions from Farah Al Qasimi, Ed Atkins, Alessandro Bavo, Gabriele Basilico, Josh Bitelli, James Bridle, Cao Fei, Alex Mackin Dolan, Thomas Dozol, Constant Dullaart, Cecile B Evans, Rami Farook, Hans-Peter Feldmann, GCC, K-Hole, Liam Gillick, Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Eloise Hawser, Camille Henrot, Hu Fang, K-Hole, Koo Jeong-A, Katja Novitskova, Lara Ogel, Trevor Paglen, Yuri Patterson, Jon Rafman, Bunny Rogers, Bogosi Sekhukhuni, Taryn Simon, Hito Steyerl, Michael Stipe, Rosemarie Trockel, Amalia Ulman, David Weir, Trevor Yeung.

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Former Vice President Al Gore's New York Times #1 bestselling book is a daring call to action, exposing the shocking reality of how humankind has aided in the destruction of our planet and the future we face if we do not take action to stop global warming. Now, Viking has adapted this book for the most important audience of all: today's youth, who have no choice but to confront this climate crisis head-on.

Dramatic full-color photos, illustrations, and graphs combine with Gore's effective and clear writing to explain global warming in very real terms: what it is, what causes it, and what will happen if we continue to ignore it. An Inconvenient Truth will change the way young people understand global warming and hopefully inspire them to help change the course of history.