or
Sign in to turn on 1-Click ordering.
 
 
Express Checkout with PayPhrase
What's this? | Create PayPhrase
Sorry!
X
More Buying Choices
110 used & new from $0.01
Have one to sell? Sell yours here
 
   
Life After God
 
 
See all product images
See 1 customer image
Share your own customer images
Search inside this book
Tell the Publisher!
I’d like to read this book on Kindle

Don’t have a Kindle? Get your Kindle here.
 
  

Life After God (Paperback)

~ (Author) "I was driving you up to Prince George to the home of your grandfather, the golf wino..." (more)
Key Phrases: British Columbia, Las Vegas, Palm Springs (more...)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (70 customer reviews)
List Price: $14.00
Price: $10.92 & eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details
You Save: $3.08 (22%)
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Want it delivered Thursday, November 12? Choose One-Day Shipping at checkout. Details
34 new from $3.95 73 used from $0.01 3 collectible from $12.97

Formats

Amazon Price New from Used from
  Hardcover -- $3.74 $0.01
  Paperback $10.92 $3.95 $0.01
  Mass Market Paperback -- -- $2.13
  Audio, Cassette, Audiobook -- $67.01 $10.00

Best Value

Buy Generation A: A Novel and get Life After God at an additional 5% off Amazon.com's everyday low price.

Generation A: A Novel + Life After God
Buy Together Today: $26.69

Show availability and shipping details

  • Generation A: A Novel

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

  • This item: Life After God

    In Stock.
    Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
    Eligible for FREE Super Saver Shipping on orders over $25. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Shampoo Planet

Shampoo Planet

by Douglas Coupland
3.8 out of 5 stars (58)  $11.97
Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture

Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture

by Douglas Coupland
4.0 out of 5 stars (112)  $10.85
All Families are Psychotic: A Novel

All Families are Psychotic: A Novel

by Douglas Coupland
3.3 out of 5 stars (63)  $10.17
Hey Nostradamus!: A Novel

Hey Nostradamus!: A Novel

by Douglas Coupland
4.1 out of 5 stars (57)  $10.17
Girlfriend in a Coma

Girlfriend in a Coma

by Douglas Coupland
3.5 out of 5 stars (177)  $11.70
› Explore similar items

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Coupland's Generation X and Shampoo Planet explored the ennui of a generation of young adults, reared on a promiscuous diet of mass culture, who regard politics, sex, the job market, global events and religion with the same degree of ironic apathy. His new collection of stories offers variations on that same theme, a series of loosely connected, escapist adventures in which a 30-year-old narrator flees a middling job and hits the road in quest of authentic spiritual experience, reflecting with mixed nostalgia and despair upon past events, from his insular suburban upbringing to his recently dissolved marriage. In the opening story, "Little Creatures," the narrator, harassed by legal troubles and recriminating phone calls from his ex-wife, accompanies his young daughter on a car trip north from Vancouver into a primeval landscape enveloped in snow. After his car conks out in a desolate stretch of Nevada, the protagonist of "In the Desert" meets a wizened vagrant who feeds him cold fast-food before vanishing without a trace, leaving the narrator to muse about the transcendent value of "small acts of mercy." Like Generation X , the margins of which held snippets of data and other visual aids, Life After God is illustrated with childlike drawings of cute animals, appliances, barren landscapes, road signs and other symbols, a faux naif touch that underscores Coupland's fetish for lost innocence. Although these tales of escape from the taint of middle-class culture and technology occasionally do strike a note of real feeling, they succeed less as an allegory for a postmodern, post-ironic spiritual life than as an amusing travelogue for jaded, pop-culturally literate couch potatoes.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.


From Library Journal

In his first collection of stories, the author of Generation X (St. Martin's, 1991) and Shampoo Planet ( LJ 8/92) seeks understanding in a world gone mad, a world in which the lack of any spiritual center hastens people's rapid descent into an entropic black hole. Coupland's characters are lost souls, wandering on widely divergent paths, all seeking to fill an aching void. His vivid depictions of life's greatest fears (including chilling vignettes about the bomb going off) remind us that human beings have the ultimate power to destroy but lack the moral fiber to end such a threat altogether. Throughout this striking, sometimes poignant, sometimes horrifying book, Coupland poses thought-provoking and troubling philosophical questions that will challenge readers. In "Gettysburg," a character thinks, "Imagine that I am drowning and I reach within myself to save that one memory which is me--what is it?" Illustrated by the author. Recommended for all libraries. Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 10/1/93.
- Kevin M. Roddy, Univ. of Hawaii at Hilo Lib.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

  • Paperback: 368 pages
  • Publisher: Washington Square Press (March 1, 1995)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0671874349
  • ISBN-13: 978-0671874346
  • Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 4.4 x 0.8 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (70 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.com Sales Rank: #134,179 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

    Popular in this category: (What's this?)

    #5 in  Books > Literature & Fiction > Authors, A-Z > ( C ) > Coupland, Douglas

    •  Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

More About the Author

Douglas Coupland
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

› Visit Amazon's Douglas Coupland Page
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:
Inside This Book (learn more)
First Sentence:
I was driving you up to Prince George to the home of your grandfather, the golf wino. Read the first page
Key Phrases - Capitalized Phrases (CAPs): (learn more)
British Columbia, Las Vegas, Palm Springs, Patty Hearst, Vancouver Island, Pacific Ocean, West Vancouver, Burger King, North Shore
New!
Concordance | Text Stats
Browse Sample Pages:
Front Cover | Table of Contents | First Pages | Back Cover | Surprise Me!
Search Inside This Book:
Citations (learn more)
This book cites 4 books:
 
75 books cite this book:
See all 75 books citing this book

What Do Customers Ultimately Buy After Viewing This Item?

Life After God
77% buy the item featured on this page:
Life After God 4.4 out of 5 stars (70)
$10.92
The Gum Thief: A Novel
8% buy
The Gum Thief: A Novel 3.8 out of 5 stars (23)
$11.25
Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture
7% buy
Generation X: Tales for an Accelerated Culture 4.0 out of 5 stars (112)
$10.85
JPod
4% buy
JPod 3.0 out of 5 stars (81)
$13.09
Explore similar items

Tags Customers Associate with This Product

 (What's this?)
Click on a tag to find related items, discussions, and people.
 
(5)
(4)
(4)
(3)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
(1)
See all 14 tags...

Your tags: Add your first tag
 
See most popular tags

Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store

If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store. Learn more
 

Customer Reviews

70 Reviews
5 star:
 (44)
4 star:
 (17)
3 star:
 (2)
2 star:
 (6)
1 star:
 (1)
 
 
 
 
 
Average Customer Review
4.4 out of 5 stars (70 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
Share your thoughts with other customers:
Most Helpful Customer Reviews

 
31 of 32 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Lingering, February 25, 2003
I was only recent introduced to Douglas Coupland by a pal of mine who pestered me for months to try his books. Now I'm glad she did. "Life After God" has a somewhat experimental feel to the narrative, but it's a successful experiment if it is.

Coupland explores the concept: "You are the first generation raised without religion." Or more specifically, how human beings (all of which are born with a drive to believe in something -- religion, politics, art) respond to the material-driven world. Meditations on what separates humans from animals, imagining a nuclear explosion and how it would immediately impact the people who die in it, a philosophical bout with depression, and how people respond to their "lives after God."

Disregard the initially off-putting title of the book, because that title really doesn't reflect what the book is about. At the end of one short story, the narrator concludes, "My secret is that I need God." Not the way religious fanatic Dana does, which is more needy and superficial, but rather in a deep and primal way. And Coupland doesn't go overboard trying to explain it to the readers -- he just writes it and lets it sink in.

It has a slightly odd format; the pages are tiny, and the parts of each short story are more like connected vignettes, some only a few sentences long. And it's sprinkled with cute little drawings, like Coupland doodled on his manuscript. (Rain, boxes, computers, matches, and a parakeet with a key in its beak, among others) As in Coupland's other books, there is a sort of unhappy optimism to these stories, and Coupland's musings about how a lack of emphasized God has affected our ability to love and believe.

"Life After God" is not exactly an ordinary book. But it touches very well on hard-to-write-about topics and its messages lingered for a long time in my mind.

Comment Comment (1) | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars A book that really makes you think..., September 15, 2006
By Charity (Idaho) - See all my reviews
This splendidly written book captivates the reader with compassion for the main character as he stumbles through the mistakes and beauty he has created in his life. The book follows the journey of a person who is trying to discover who he is in the midst of a fallen world, void spirituality and broken dreams. I'm a huge fan of the author, Douglas Coupland, and I feel that this is by far his best work. It will make you laugh, cry and ponder this crazy thing we call existence.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)



 
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Quite depressing, but revelatory., September 9, 2006
"Life After God" is a genuinely morose, sad, melancholic collection of stories dealing with loneliness, isolation and unhappiness. Most of its characters are numbly horrified by where they find themselves in life.

The stories here deal with that in-between world of the childishness of youth and the maturity of adulthood -- and how the people existing in that world make the transition. Some simply take the step, while others -- the people here -- can't help but pause and reflect, to question it, to wonder if it's even sensible.

Coupland's premise seems to be that this young generation of the '90s, so deadened by irony, so empty and unfeeling, experience this crushing loneliness because they are without religion (which is something I don't agree with, since I side with Marx and think of religion as nothing more than an opiate).

Coupland does understand his characters, though, and as someone who's just a bit younger, I identified with them (even when I found them pretentious and dramatic). There are times when I felt like Coupland was stealing my thoughts. Showing me conversations I've had about the worries and insecurities in my life.

The greatest thing about "Life After God" are the staggering and utterly true thoughts Coupland drops here and there, which are so perfectly accurate, they leave you gut-punched.

I probably enjoyed the final two stories the least, and "In The Desert" the most, but "Life After God" is an excellent story collection that displays Coupland's considerable talent.
Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)


Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
 
 
 
Most Recent Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars 4.5 Stars - I'll be thinking of this for a long time
"Life Without God" is a collection of short works, some of which are obviously fictional and some it is hard to tell. Read more
Published 1 month ago by M. J. Keel

4.0 out of 5 stars Different take on a great book
Am I the only one who thinks that this is one narrator going through different points in his life? So many people seem to say that this is different narrators of short stories... Read more
Published 2 months ago by Jason M. Santeler

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent
"Beyond a certain age, sincerity ceases to feel pornographic."

This is an excellent book. Read more
Published 20 months ago by Adam Loghry

4.0 out of 5 stars Oddly Interesting
I enjoyed this book. My first Coupland read but certainly not my last. Seems quite different than other Coupland I've read. Read more
Published on September 16, 2007 by machinetwelve

5.0 out of 5 stars Awsome
This is one of those books that I have wanted to review for a while, but was unsure of how to approach it. Read more
Published on March 27, 2007 by Steven R. McEvoy

2.0 out of 5 stars Life After the Weak-minded.
Anthropocentric fairytales and simple moral fables.

He writes well however. He'd produce very good sci-fi if he got over his,

"Oh there must be some... Read more
Published on December 7, 2006 by Barry Yamaha

4.0 out of 5 stars Learning the difference between a leash and a shovel
Two things stuck with me from the book Fight Club: (1) the line "Your father is your model for God" and (2) I wish I'd read it before I visited Blarney Castle. Read more
Published on August 7, 2006 by thecableguy

4.0 out of 5 stars More impressive than you'd think
I love Douglas Coupland. I think he is an amazing writer, and this little book proves it. It's a collection of circumstances and stories that are really quite deep when you... Read more
Published on November 29, 2005 by Adele Muircheartaigh

5.0 out of 5 stars exactly what i was thinking ...
All I can say is that it's one of those books that makes you realize you're not alone. The whole time I found myself going "YES!! Exactly!! Read more
Published on September 27, 2005 by Maggie Tulliver

5.0 out of 5 stars A very deep book
About 8 years ago I spent the night at a friend's house one night and had severe insomnia, so I picked up this book from her bookshelf and started reading it. Read more
Published on September 2, 2005 by R.S.

Only search this product's reviews


Customer Discussions

This product's forum
Discussion Replies Latest Post
No discussions yet

Ask questions, Share opinions, Gain insight
Start a new discussion
Topic:
First post:
Prompts for sign-in
 


Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
Search all Amazon discussions
   

So You'd Like to...

Create a guide

Product Information from the Amapedia Community

Beta (What's this?)

Look for Similar Items by Category

Look for Similar Items by Subject

Search Books by subject:








i.e., each book must be in subject 1 AND subject 2 AND ...
 

Feedback

If you need help or have a question for Customer Service, contact us.
 Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
Is there any other feedback you would like to provide?

Your comments can help make our site better for everyone.


Your Recent History

 (What's this?)

After viewing product detail pages or search results, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in.