City of Glass

Ann Turner is the financial and budget manager of the University of
British Columbia Library.

Doug Coupland explains this amusing and insightful collection of essays
and photographs as a labor of love and laziness. His deep love for
Vancouver, his native city, and all its idiosyncrasies is evident on
every page, but laziness? The laziness comes, he says, from showing
countless visitors around the city and answering the same questions
again and again. So here is the Doug Coupland guide to Vancouver in
written form, conveniently arranged from A to Z, complete with a
photographic index. This index is a small treasure in itself, consisting
of thumbnail-size snippets from unexpected places in the full-size
photos accompanying the essays.

Coupland is an artist specializing in industrial design as well as an
author known internationally for his novels and articles in newspapers
and magazines. Two excerpts from the novels, concerning life in the
downtown hotel scene and the Lions Gate Bridge, are reprinted within the
collection. Like the shorter essays written for this book, the reprinted
excerpts view their subjects through Coupland’s personal reminiscences
of growing up and living in Vancouver, his feelings about the city, and
his off-beat but so-on-target sense of humor. City of Glass is a
delightful collection to dip into and enjoy.