Title: The Age of Earthquakes: A Guide to the Extreme Present
Author(s): Shumon Basar, Douglas Coupland & Hans Ulrich Obrist
Genre: Non-fiction
Rating: ****
“You know the future’s really happening when you start feeling scared. The future loves you but it doesn’t need you.”
I first heard about this book through Leena from JustKissMyFrog, a youtube channel I’ve been watching forever. However, even she struggled to review this one and to be honest since finishing it (in one sitting of 45 minutes) so am I.
Here’s what she said:
“This is a non-fiction book that discusses individualism versus mob mentality in civilizaion, and the interaction between reality and the internet and how that is gonna dusrupt the world.”
See why I had to read this? I had to figure out what that even means.
In a nutshell, the three authors were trying to make sense of our complicated relationship with the online world, by combining thought bubbles, definitions and bizarre imagery, all while meta fictionally discussing the means of even having an attention span.
Whilst reading, (better wording: devouring) this book I kept asking myself ‘why has nobody questioned this topic in this way before?’ Yes, I’m sure academics have written long-winded articles exploring the damage the internet is going to cause to our world, and dystopian fiction is incredibly popular. But The Age of Earthquakes looks at our relationship with the internet in a manner that is both strangely familiar yet totally uncomfortable, painfully truthful yet completely necessary. It holds up a mirror to society that, as the reader, you just cannot hide away from, and for that, I tip my hat to Basar, Coupland, and Obrist.
I urge you to find this book and experience it too… I mean look at this page… do I need to say anymore?
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