#2 on my Hit List

Read 100 Books in 24 months:

In an effort to begin progress on this goal I went to the public library, cleared up my fines and renewed my membership.

Book 1: J-Pod by Douglas Coupland

This is a book by a Canadian author about a group of quirky software writers who work for a video game company in Vancouver and are connected through a grouping of cubicles from which there is no escape called j-pod (where all the inhabitants last names start with J). The group appear to enjoy a 12 hour workday, but come and go for hours as they please – to go sneaker shopping or move the bodies of dead bikers, or go on Cheerios cereal runs to Costco – they seem to actually work only about 2 hours a day and spend the remaining work day coming up with new and inventive ways to procrastinate and amuse themselves, like a writing competition to sell themselves on e-bay, or writing a letter to Ronald McDonald convincing him that they are the perfect life-mate for the hamburger icon, or finding their phone numbers in sequential order in the decimal places of Pi.

The story follows the co-workers and the main character, Ethan Jarlewski and his pot-growing/selling mom, professional-turned-actor father, real estate brother and his karaoke singing, ballroom dancing Chinese-mobster business associate.

I enjoyed this book immensely, it was funny, strange and entertaining.