Planet Earth needs a self-help book, and this is it

The future is happening to us far faster than we thought it would and this book explains why

Fifty years after Marshall McLuhan's ground breaking book on the influence of technology on culture The Medium is the Massage, Shumon Basar, Douglas Coupland and Hans Ulrich Obrist extend the analysis to today, touring the world that's redefined by the Internet, decoding and explaining what they call the 'extreme present'.

The Age of Earthquakes is a quick-fire paperback, harnessing the images, language and perceptions of our unfurling digital lives. The authors invent a glossary of new words to describe how we are truly feeling today; and 'mindsource' images and illustrations from over 30 contemporary artists. Wayne Daly's striking graphic design imports the surreal, juxtaposed, mashed mannerisms of screen to page. It's like a culturally prescient, all-knowing email to the reader: possibly the best email they will ever read.

Welcome to The Age of Earthquakes, a paper portrait of Now, where the Internet hasn't just changed the structure of our brains these past few years, it's also changing the structure of the planet. This is a new history of the world that fits perfectly in your back pocket.

A unique collaboration between three people, The Age of Earthquakes tours the world that's left behind as the world we knew melts away. A book of perceptions set in our 'extreme present', it's a new history of the world, a portrait of our digital era in a relentlessly paper form.


About the Author
Hans Ulrich Obrist is a curator and writer. Since 2006 he has been co-director of the Serpentine Gallery, London. He is the author of Ways of Curating and, with Ai Weiwei, of Ai Weiwei Speaks.

Reviews
Brainy book that will rock your world * Evening Standard *
Absolutely amazing -- Jon Snow * Channel 4 News *
An email-like, culturally-perceptive exploration of our digital realities... a mix between a dystopian modern glossary, Internet memes, multiple-choice dropdowns, mindsourced images and a fair bit of wisdom, it is a self-help book for the "last generation that will die" * AnOther Magazine *
A philosophical Anarchist Cookbook for the online era, when we are in touch with everyone at once all the time, or like to feel that we are... Like Marshall McLuhan's iconic dictum "the medium is the message" or the staccato bursts of meaning of George W.S. Trow's essay-book In the Context of No Context, The Age of Earthquakes is an abstract representation of how we feel now about how we are now. It's a book insistently engaged with the present tense... Perhaps it is the 21st century's first book-meme * Pacific Standard *
Many of us feel like technologies of the future are arriving too slowly, but a new philosophy-cum-modern-self-help book suggests that, in fact, it's dawning on us faster than we ever thought possible * Vice *
A pocket-sized primer on our blossoming obsolescence -- Kate Sutton * Art Forum *
Age of Earthquakes = panic-inducingly addictive -- Penny Martin, editor of The Gentlewoman
It's a fun, visual and easy read. Verdict: In the future all books will be written this way -- Sultan Saood Al Qassimi
An abstract representation of how we feel about our digital world * Hello! *
I don't know about you but I would very much like a guide to this brave new world * Huck *
Addictive... A fun read. But one that makes you question how you read, why you read and just how much the internet has restructured our brains... It is a book not only inspired by the internet, but seemingly written by the internet. It is as if the internet gained not only artificial self-consciousness but wisdom - and then became your pal -- Tod Wodicka * National *
I think everyone should read it -- Mike Pinnington * Double Negative *
The Age of Earthquakes seeks to induce paradoxical visions of the contemporary, both ambivalent and critical * V Magazine *



Book Information
ISBN 9780141979564
Author Shumon Basar
Format Paperback
Page Count 256
Imprint Penguin Books Ltd
Publisher Penguin Books Ltd
Weight(grams) 192g
Dimensions(mm) 180mm * 110mm * 20mm