Binge

60 stories to make your brain feel different

By: Douglas Coupland

Narrated by: Salvatore Antonio, Stephanie Belding, Victoria Carr, Jarvis Cocker, Douglas Coupland, Bret Easton Ellis, Anna Faris, Will Ferguson, Genki Ferguson, Chuck Klosterman, Andrew Moodie, Jane Pratt, Katie Ryerson, Michael Stipe

The first new work of fiction since 2013 from one of Canada's most successful, idiosyncratic and world-defining writers, Douglas Coupland. He's called it Binge because it's impossible to read just one.


Imagine feeling 100% alive every moment of every minute of the day! Maybe that's how animals live. Or trees, even. I sometimes stare at the plastic bag tree visible from my apartment window and marvel that both it and I are equally alive and that there's no sliding scale of life. You're either alive, or you're not. Or you're dead or you're not.

Thirty years after Douglas Coupland broke the fiction mould and defined a generation with Generation X, he is back with Binge, 60 stories laced with his observational profundity about the way we live and his existential worry about how we should be living: the very things that have made him such an influential and bestselling writer. Not to mention that he can also be really funny.

Here the narrators vary from story to story as Doug catches what he calls "the voice of the people," inspired by the way we write about ourselves and our experiences in online forums. The characters, of course, are Doug's own: crackpots, cranks and sweetie-pies, dad dancers and perpetrators of carbecues. People in the grip of unconscionable urges; lonely people; dying people; silly people. If you love Doug's fiction, this collection is like rain on the desert.

Featuring stories narrated by:

Victoria Carr; Selena Dhillon; Stephanie Belding; Lorna Wilson; Liz Dunn; Jane Pratt; Charlotte Shaifer; Caleb Stull; Salvatore Antonio; Will Ferguson; Douglas Coupland ; Genki Ferguson; Jarvis Cocker; Chuck Klosterman; Michael Stipe; and Bret Easton Ellis

Critic reviews

NATIONAL BESTSELLER

“The 60 pieces of micro-fiction found in [Binge]—sometimes linked, occasionally by plotline, but mainly by recurring characters—are precisely honed. . . . Hooks abound in Binge, pulling readers from one bite-sized story . . . to the next.” —Maclean’s

“[A] diverting set of literary appetizers.” —Publishers Weekly

"[A] mind-bender. . . . Coupland’s voice is as clever as ever, creating a specific sense of place.” —Winnipeg Free Press

Great work of cultural insight and detail

Couplands eye for the general western narrative of the subnorms is sharp... yet lacks depth of ethnic diversity.

Great book

Gritty and extremely honest. It’s the everyday brutal and interesting. And the readings are great too.

Ready to read it again

First time I remember finishing a book and deciding to read it again immediately before my next 20000 days pass.

Stories as interwoven as life itself

At first it seemed daunting that there would be 60 short stories that I would be listening to, I thought I’d bore easily despite loving several Of the authors books. Once I realized how different the characters were, I was engaged. Then when I started to see the threads weaving together between the different short stories, I was thrilled. With this said it will come to an end - and that end is just another short story of an interrelated character. I would love to purchase a map laying out all the connections. Loved it.

Great Coupland Book!

Having loved Coupland's earlier work, Binge is a return to form. Great stories! Great performances! Laugh out loud funny in places...worth the listen.

Doug continues to be under-rated

This tiny jewel does not seem to have taken off. This audiobook does what few fiction audiobooks can add rather than detract from the book itself. My listen came either two or three years after my read. Pandemic time, my life, and all that have rung my bell like a bording by Bob Probert. I'm a young Gen X, which means Doug's book of the same name as the generation, washed into my cultural stew with Nirvana, BBSs, and enail.

A decade ago I left Canada and have lived in the US and the UK. Coupland seems to exist in the space where he was too successful too early to me claimed by the Can Con folk. Even with doing Canada house, Souvenirs, and some of the most Canadian art since Michael Snow's Geese at Eaton Centre.

What does this non-reviee, non-story, have to do with these 60 stories for your brain. Not much, but the book delivers on its promise -- you'll feel different. I felt at home. I felt at the Metro Toronto reference library or in Hamilton after 9/11 seeing Doug and thinking, yeah. I'm Canadian. I'm quite Canadian, despite recently becoming a naturalized US citizen.

Coupland Still Relevant, Never Disappoints

An all-star cast brings his words to life. Absolutely brilliant, definitively Coupland. A collection of masterfully spun tales that are woven together to compose a rich tapestry that reflects our society in all of it's grotesque majesty. Intellectually reflective and unflinchingly honest; true hallmarks of every Coupland novel. Thank you for another masterpiece.

Mix of random stories

Just a bunch of random stories with no cohesive direction I could tell. I love Coupland but this book was not my cup of tea. I prefer his long form story telling.