Microserfs, by Douglas Coupland (Flamingo, £5.99 in UK)

In this diary of a group of disaffected Microsoft employees who set up an independent software company, Coupland takes the hip…

In this diary of a group of disaffected Microsoft employees who set up an independent software company, Coupland takes the hip hop, instant gratification, random access world of computer technology, grafts on his idiosyncratic blend of cultural cynicism and fin de siecle angst and produces an entirely new variety of online fiction. He is a master of the irrelevant detail - old pop songs, TV catchphrases, brand names and bits of Japanese slosh around the text just as they do in our information overloaded brains. If Coupland's computer nerds didn't exist, it would be necessary to invent them.

Arminta Wallace

Arminta Wallace

Arminta Wallace is a former Irish Times journalist