Agent Palmer

Every major city in the world has a talented writer. Every city in the world has a travel guide of some sort, but what City of Glass: Douglas Coupland’s Vancouver does is marry the talented writer with the travel guide glued together with a passion for one’s own hometown, to create not just a travel guide, but a glimpse into local life.

I read the 2006 Revised Edition, but originally published in 2000, this book is Vancouver’s ABCs, a local tourism perspective, the likes of which you’d need to find a very good local blogger to get from anywhere else.

“NASA wasn’t created in a vacuum and suddenly tasked with the Moon landing,” writes Amy Shira Teitel in her debut publication Breaking the Chains of Gravity: The Story of Spaceflight before NASA.

Without historians and authors, of which Teitel is both, it would appear as if NASA did just appear on the scene ready, able, and willing to start Projects Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo. But the truth is much more intriguing and far less polished than pop culture and general history would have you believe.

More than a decade after its release and the time I first opened its pages, I returned to Ethan Gilsdorf’s Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks: An Epic Quest for Reality Among Role Players, Online Gamers, and Other Dwellers of Imaginary Realms. The trip back has reminded me why there is merit to rereading certain books.

First released in 2009, when I was just Jason and not Agent Palmer, I had no blog, no podcast, a boring job, and I was really just trying to find my way in the world. It was the perfect time to first pick up this book. This second time, I have a blog, a podcast, no job, and I’m still just trying to find my way in the world.

Alright, Alright, Alright: The Oral History of Richard Linklater’s Dazed and Confused is a masterpiece of inspired writing, research, interviewing, and storytelling by Melissa Maerz.

But this book isn’t just about Dazed and Confused. It’s about the process of moviemaking, storytelling, corporate Hollywood, independent film, nostalgia, and art. It’s recommended reading for any creative person.