My theory on the book: David Weinberger's essay on the Internet for NPR got too long, so he asked his wife (a philosophy prof) for some Philosophy 100 material he could insert at random points to pad it into a short novel.
In it, he talks about the way we use the net, particularly how our ideas of distance, time, and identity change as we surf the net. Anyone who has lived even a small portion of their life connected will find very little new in Small Pieces Loosely Joined.
Weinberger's thesis is that the net (the Internet combined with the World Wide Web) is made from small documents linked together through the magic of the hyperlink.
"Big deal," I hear the noding community say. "We've been doing that for years."
Exactly. It makes me wonder to whom the author was writing. The book came out in 2002, a time when the majority of the web was already put together — too early to mention new post-Web projects like the Semantic Web or del.icio.us, but too late to be inspiring or innovative to the public. "Weblogging" gets brief coverage, but I suppose we can forgive that, seeing as blogging has only been popular since the Dan Rather fiasco.
I suppose there might be an audience for this work - but if you're reading this, you're not one of them.