DISQUS

Jack Yan · 5 months ago

I am having trouble picturing this. Would it be along the lines of this?

Pride & Prejudice: Mum tried to hook Jane up. Darcy can be an SOB, but he does good stuff, cool! Nice ring! Yay Gardiners!

Matthew · 5 months ago

Somewhere a Literary Agent is about to be fired. The only people who care about what 19yo Twitters have to say are 19yo Twitters, and the only books they buy are textbooks, or maybe manga. Either way I don't think Penguin should expect to recoup their advance.

bradleyf81 · 5 months ago

Actually, I think we'll all be surprised. Since it's being marketed people will pick it up thinking it's a defining book about Twitter and its impact on American culture. I wouldn't be surprised if it becomes a NY Times Bestseller.

swag · 5 months ago

Who says print media is dead?

Cassy · 5 months ago

That's my generation for you. I do admit I like this idea more than all the other crap Twitter is being used for these days. I don't want to say Twitter has sold-out or gone completely corporate, but with everyone and their dog being on "the Twitter" I think it has.

hotlou · 5 months ago

Cassie -- you are more right than you know! http://twitter.com/Dogopolis

bradleyf81 · 5 months ago

"the Twitter"

I've been out of the US for a while now. Is that what parents are calling it?

sf · 5 months ago

18 somethings don't even use Twitter. Read the research. So, I hope they don't intend to market it at Gen Y's....

Cassy · 5 months ago

In response to sf, I'm 18 and while I agree we are not the biggest demographic at the moment, just wait - I sense there will be a change in that statistic very soon.

bradleyf81 · 5 months ago

Funny, I thought that's who it would appeal to most. Now that I think about it though, most of the people I know that use Twitter are in their mid 20s to mid 30s.

paramendra · 5 months ago

Now that's a thought.

eattrn · 5 months ago

Good for them. I can't see me reading it but good luck.

bradleyf81 · 5 months ago

Take it 140 characters at a time and you could get through it?

eattrn · 5 months ago

Possible. But I have a hard time getting through my kids text messages and all their code speak.

bradleyf81 · 5 months ago

At my last job in the US, before I moved to Asia, there was a young guy, 19, that would text me sometimes to ask me work related questions. I can understand a few abbreviations, but this guy took it to a whole other level. Sometimes I would have to call him to find out what he was talking about.

So far, here in Asia, the only person I text regularly is my wife. Maybe when I get a job that will change. I imagine I'll have an aneurism trying to figure the stuff out. Just trying to understand the local English dialect when it's spoken is a challenge to me sometimes. Their accent is heavy and they mix in a lot of Hokkien Chinese slang. I'm living in Singapore at the moment if you're curious.

Donna Barstow · 5 months ago

Not entirely out of the blue. Emmitt Rensin's father, David Rensin, has been a successful writer of non-fiction celebrity bios for many years. Nice guy!

john · 5 months ago

Heres a great new user run alternative to face book and others that you guys might be interested in. It's called the "Gathering Of Watchers"

Kinda like youtube, facebook and craigs list rolled into 1. http://gatheringofwatchers.com/

marybella · 5 months ago

for more twitter fun, check out http://www.oversharers.com/

TrafficBlogger · 5 months ago

"how were we to know it would come to this?"

Seriously, how annoying. I hope they don't sell many copies ;P, its neither remarkable or quality.

David Rensin · 5 months ago

To Pete: Since Donna Barstow dropped my name -- and Emmett and Alex are out after a hard days work on the book -- I thought I'd comment. Nice of you to post about the book. Good that you picked up on the introduction's verbosity. It's meant to be Ironic, of course, in contrast with tweeting great literature.

Jack: the premise is NOT to sum up each book in one 140 charcter or less tweet. That's just short-handing the plots, and not that interesting. This book is much more ambitious. Each book is presented -- as the subtitle indicates -- in up to twenty tweets. So why are a couple smart rising sophomores from U Chicago writing this book? Because betweeen them they've actually read every book they're including.


Twitterature is funny and smart.

Shakespeare, Stendhal and Joyce would all have a laugh.

thelostagency · 5 months ago

Hopefully unlike many tweets sent out I hope they remember to spell check the message before publication...

Bob · 5 months ago

And one hopes they'll use hopefully properly as well.

thelostagency · 5 months ago

But I would wonder how they would promote such a book, I mean its not as if many popular Blogs are covering the story.... "hi mashable editors..."

The only downside is that the audience to Oprah may not be getting a copy as part of Oprah's Book club so it may remain a niche topic...

bradleyf81 · 5 months ago

I want to argue that their conclusion is wrong, that Twitter isn't the height of thinking for the average American, but then... I don't think I could.

DeanWhitbread · 5 months ago

"As such, it demands our attention – and gotten it."

Dreadful sentence.

It's either "...it has demanded our attention - and gotten it."

or

"...it demands our attention - and gets it."

That's if you think "gotten" is valid in the first place.

Dushyant · 5 months ago

Don't u guys have anything else to write about

kelly simmons · 5 months ago

Well, if anyone wants to see what they're gonna do, you can basically follow me on twitter.
I've been doing "Twitter-sized Book Reviews" since January, not that I'm bitter. (hmmm--
Bitterature: the sequel. . . .) @kellysimmons

People Search · 5 months ago

I like the concept of Twitterature, but the literary greats would roll over in their graves.

marshal sandler · 5 months ago

http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/godot/summary.html Reading is part one to comprehend is
part two HEH I tried to Tweet the first three pages of Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton it had to may words-

Kathy · 5 months ago

But books aren't about the specific plot points! They are about all the details between page 1 and 300 (or whatever). The story that gets you from point to point. There is so much more to learn in a book than 'he was born, he did something great, he died.'

Kman · 5 months ago

J.K. Rowling is this generations high literature?

Ambarish Mitra · 5 months ago

Hats off to Emmett Rensin and Alex Aciman for coming out with "Twitterature" as its a brilliant idea get a snapshot of great literature. This will make people read literature which is seen as boring by many in nintendo wii generation.

Anxuna · 5 months ago

It`s so freaking

JanKozlowski · 5 months ago

Interesting that they're writing a book on retelling great literature on Twitter and we're actually doing the experimental story telling- live and semi-improvisational- in a six week arc through character tweets in Tweet Mystery of Death. If you'd like to check out some ORIGINAL work we're at @Tweet_Mystery and www.tweetmystery.com

erickd · 5 months ago

Sincerest apologies indeed.

Brooke · 5 months ago

Isn't this basically the same thing as Book-a-Minute? http://www.rinkworks.com/bookaminute/ More characters, I guess, but not by much. And probably funnier?

Greg Pincus · 5 months ago

Abridging classics is a great route to comedy and has been done time and again (sometimes successfully, sometimes not). As one example, Maurice Sagoff wrote a great book called Shrinklits, beginning his reduction of Beowulf with...

Monster Grendel's tastes are plainish. Breakfast? Just a couple Danish.

I don't know if Twitterature will rise to that level, but there's certainly potential humor to be found here. I hope, though, they didn't make Dickens' paid-by-the-word deal....

Ben · 5 months ago

> "Tweets can refine literature 'to its purest form'."

Someone doesn't understand what defines good literature.

> "Shakespeare, Stendhal and Joyce would all have a laugh."

Probably -- everyone enjoys a good farce.