One of the great novelists of our time is gone, an explorer of both his own history and of technology and its effect on mankind, J. G. Ballard passed away this week. Best known for the novel Crash, his exploration of modern man’s fetishization of the automobile, and for Empire of the Sun, his autobiographical retelling of his youth. Crash or Empire Sun are both fantastic reads, or if you want to delve a little deeper, grab a copy of Atrocity Exhibition or Concrete Island and make sure he is remembered right.
For those not inclined to literature, at the bare minimum, go rent Cronenberg’s 1996 version of Ballard’s Crash.
– Luke
