City of Glass: Douglas Coupland's Vancouver [Paperback]

Douglas Coupland (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 10, 2009

This irresistible little book offers a very different take on Vancouver, one of the world's most beautiful cities. Douglas Coupland applies his unique sensibility to everything from the Grouse Grind to glass towers, First Nations to feng shui, Kitsilano to Cantonese. Cleverly designed to mimic an underground Japanese magazine, this edition is fully updated and revised with riffs on Vancouver as a neon city, a land of treehuggers, and more.

Product Details

• Paperback: 168 pages
• Publisher: Douglas & McIntyre; Revised Edition edition (November 10, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1553653599
• ISBN-13: 978-1553653592
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 6.4 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (13 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,306,627 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars May as well buy a ticket now..., May 13, 2003

By 

Jennifer M. Macleod "yiddishe supermama" (Canada) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: City of Glass: Doug Coupland's Vancouver (Paperback)

This book will leave you aching for Vancouver, whether you've been there before or not. I have, but never lived it the way Coupland has. This is more than a travel book; it'll take you into the underside, and the overside, and every side Vancouver has.

Vancouver is lushly fertile and starkly commercial, historical and modern; Vancouver is Every City, with an emergent personality all its own. Until you can get there to see it yourself, buy this book, keep it on your coffee table, and dive with Coupland into his own bizarre Vancouver dreams.

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Empty Windows, May 2, 2005

By 

Waldo (North America) - See all my reviews

This review is from: City of Glass: Doug Coupland's Vancouver (Paperback)

I bought this book when I was still new to Vancouver, being attracted by the title and cover art, as I had been struck by glassy Vancouver skyline and thought I might share the author's sensibility.

Unfortunately, this is the kind of book where the amount of content fit for an article in a weekly newspaper like the Georgia Straight is padded to fit the size (and price) of a book. The pages are mostly white space, with a few sentences or at most a paragraph of large text in the middle touching very briefly and vaguely upon some random topic, as if the author jotted this all down one night and didn't put much thought into it. The book also contains photographs which, rather than being an "insider's look at Vancouver", could be photographs of any city out of any tourist magazine--the typical closeups of food on a plate at a nameless restaurant, or an old house that could exist anywhere in North America.

Because the text of this book is the length of an article, you could walk into a bookstore or library and read it under ten minutes. I learned nothing from it that I didn't already know about Vancouver when I moved here, and it left me wanting to read a book about Vancouver that might tell me something I don't know.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A love ode to Vancouver, December 19, 2004

By 

E. A Solinas "ea_solinas" (MD USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 50 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: City of Glass: Doug Coupland's Vancouver (Paperback)

Sure, it's only one person's view of Vancouver. But at least it's Douglas Coupland's view. In "City of Glass," the author of "All Families Are Psychotic" and "Generation X" strays from fiction to write about his home city. The result is a subdued love ode to Vancouver, peppered with photographs.

Coupland describes Vancouver with many page-long vignettes, sort of like a patchwork quilt: he describes feng shui in Vancouver, Japanese teenagers, a harbour full of sulfur piles, American couples on "love boats," monstrous houses, and the quiet detachment that Vancouver feels from the Rest of Canada. (Which has its own entry -- really!)

Coupland's fiction is generally distinguishable for its contemplative, cynically witty tones. But he drops all that for "City of Glass." Okay, there is a chunk of "Life After God" in the middle, blurry text and pics. And occasionally the transcripts of Coupland's memories remind one of his fiction, seeming sadder and darker.

Most of the time, he sounds fond and reminiscent, as if reliving the memories that come with salmon and fleece. Not to mention funny, such as when describing the confusing disagreements about feng shui (" this space should flowwwwww" or "flow is to be avoided at all costs"). And the photographs are quite good as well, with Coupland taking pictures of the prosaic subjects of his book -- a sleepy-looking Japanese teen, a fleece vest, a boat floating out on a light-filled harbor, a skiier in mid-twist on a sunlit hillside.

"City of Glass" isn't exactly going to make you race to Vancouver, but it will make you appreciate the little hidden facets of the city -- and perhaps make you notice the ones in your own.