Saturday, January 30, 2010

Maybe the best book ever written?


From the publisher:

Twitterature

The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less

by ALEXANDER ACIMAN and EMMETT RENSIN

Perhaps while reading Shakespeare you've asked yourself, What exactly is Hamlet trying to tell me? Why must he mince words and muse in lyricism and, in short, whack about the shrub? But if the Prince of Denmark had a Twitter account and an iPhone, he could tell his story in real time—and concisely! Hence the genius of Twitterature.

Hatched in a dorm room at the brain trust that is the University of Chicago, Twitterature is a hilarious and irreverent re-imagining of the classics as a series of 140-character tweets from the protagonist. Providing a crash course in more than eighty of the world's best-known books, from Homer to Harry Potter, Virgil to Voltaire, Tolstoy to Twilight and Dante to The Da Vinci Code. it's the ultimate Cliff Notes. Because as great as the classics are, who has time to read those big, long books anymore?

Sample tweets:

From Hamlet: WTF IS POLONIUS DOING BEHIND THE CURTAIN???

From the Harry Potter series: Oh man big tournament at my school this year!! PSYCHED! I hope nobody dies this year, and every year as if by clockwork.

From The Great Gatsby: Gatsby is so emo. Who cries about his girlfriend while eating breakfast . . . IN THE POOL?

Can you guess which books the following tweets come from?

@AprilFools Oh and the Wyfe of Bathe. Talk about a woman who likes to be perced to the roote.

@MajorLeagueAesthole Sadly my beauty will one day cease. Perhaps I could preserve it by having the doc pull and staple the skin of my face? No. A silly thought.

@Eazy-B Uh oh. Grendel's mom showed up. She is really pissed. Wait. Monsters have feelings?

@HolyHaha I have to climb a mountain now? You got to be kidding me. Is this a joke? Who the hell came up with this story? VIIIRRRGGGILLLLLLLLLLL!

@OedipusGothplex WTF IS POLONIUS DOING BEHIND THE CURTAIN???

@WhathappensinThebes PARTY IN THEBES!!!!! Nobody cares I killed that old dude, plus this woman is ALL OVER ME! Total MILF.

@bugged-out I seem to have transformed into a large bug. Has this ever happened to any of you? No solution on Web MD.


3 comments:

Chanda @ Disordered Cosmos said...

AMAZING!!!!!!!!!!! I am coming to buy this book, so your blog post has been a great success.

Also, Dave, I am going to use your blog to do some shameless advertising for a Haiti event. If you're willing to repost, that would be awesome! And we hope to see Words Worth employees there!

Haiti Earthquake Relief Party at Perimeter Institute’s Black Hole Bistro, Friday, February 26. Live entertainment will complement recordings of Haitian and other Caribbean artists. There will be a cash bar and Caribbean inspired cuisine for sale. The evening will start at 8:00 and ends at 1:00. Tickets are $15 and available at www.perimeterinstitute.ca/tickets
Or 519-883-8934. Join the Perimeter Institute community as we raise funds to help meet Haiti's urgent needs. All proceeds will benefit Haitian relief efforts by Doctors Without Borders and Partners In Health.

Chanda @ Disordered Cosmos said...

I'm such a bum! I got the link for the tickets wrong. Here is the correct one: https://www.perimeterinstitute.ca/members/

In other news, I think Twitterature will be the first book that I blog for the new books blog over at http://isgreaterthan.net.

_American Rust_ by Philipp Meyer, which I discovered perusing WORDS WORTH BOOKS, will be coming up soon too. It's amazing. the Comparisons to Steinbeck are not crazy.

Mandy (Words Worth Books) said...

Chanda: Thanks for the shameless advertising :) :) We'll repost it on our Facebook page.

Twitterature is SO funny. I'll check out the link you've left. Thanks!

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