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Twitterature Twitter inspires book to retell classics in 'Tweets'

June 26, 2009 - 9:48am — Blake

The compilation, called Twitterature, will comprise abridged versions of classic novels, written in the style of Tweets – short messages sent via the social networking service.

Its authors, US students Emmett Rensin and Alex Aciman, have been commissioned by the publisher Penguin to write the book which will hit shelves later this year.

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June 26, 2009 - 11:08am — Walt

Pathetic

Oh, woe is us: Who has time to read classics?

Boiling most management/success books down to 20 sentences shouldn't be all that difficult. (Maybe one really good tweet...) Boiling any proper classic down to that length will probably "work"--that is, you'll get the plot--but will inherently eviscerate the work. Two-minute Shakespeare's fun as a stunt, but only as a stunt.

Who woulda thought that we'd reach a point where Classics Illustrated could be looked back on as a respectful way to retell classic literature? I'm sure they had more than 20 sentences of text...

[OK, the whole thing's mostly a joke to sell "books," so I should lighten up.]

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June 26, 2009 - 2:41pm — Anonymous

Are they abridging the lit?

Are they abridging the literature, or are they going to "tweet" the entire books? Before we judge, we should first find out if they are going to be altering the original content. If people find they're reading the entire text of a classic, who cares what format it is in? I may not want to read a classic via Twitter, you may not, either -- but if someone is, what's the problem?

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June 26, 2009 - 4:25pm — Walt

If you read the story...

I don't mind being criticized for jumping to conclusions, but in this case "we should first find out" would only require clicking on the link--which I did before I wrote my comment.

Here's the very first sentence:

"Twitter has inspired a new book which will retell some of the world's greatest literary works in fewer than 20 sentences each. "

No, they're not abridging. They're retelling in absurdly short form.

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