A few years ago I picked up a book by Douglas Coupland which promised me more one-liners in the first 50 pages than in a decade of Woody Allen films.
So it proved. And yet in the midst of the humour there was a cry - a cry for something, someone, somewhere.
Douglas Coupland shot to fame in 1991 through his first novel, Generation X. Since then he has written seven more novels - all strangely with the same cry for something, someone more, than is here and now. His books capture the spirit of the age and brim with 'consumer brands and pop-cultural name checks' as he uses the everyday things of life to make his novels live for Generation Xers.