Twitterature: The World's Greatest Books in Twenty Tweets or Less / by Alexander Aciman

Is there anything that can't be done faster and with more abruptness? Apparently not. Even the greatest of the classic works of literature are never safe from the fast food mode of information dissemination we live with nowadays. Instant messaging, texting and Twitter have seemingly revolutionized communication to a point of no return. And so it's kind of an inevitability when you think about it that all "knowledge" will be streamlined before we know it. With this in mind, a couple of kids (both of them 19 at the time of writing) have taken it upon themselves to redo some of the world's best books (and plays and poems) ever. From the point of view of the major characters involved with a bit of of side-noting, each book is translated in Tweet-form, summarizing the gist of the story. For example, All Quiet on the Western Front / by Erich Maria Remarque, quite a "@Remarquable Tale" we're told, things start off with a nod to the now regrettable decision by the main character Paul to enlist in the German Army during World War I. "I've always heard 'Paul. Listen to adults, and teachers.' You too? We could be in Hamburg cracking open a Holsten instead."

On the cover of this book is a definition for the title--Twitterature: \'twi-te-re-,chur\n: an amalgamation of "twitter" and "literature"; humorous reworkings of literary classics for the twenty-first-century intellect, in digestive portions of 20 tweets or less. And that's just what it is. Some of the tweets are very funny; others are just plain silly and far more than just a few are really raunchy. Swiftness is key. Most tweeted book reports aren't but a page (a small page) or two at most. Along with the often quite sublime (and college-level crude) comments, things can get to the point in a hurry (i.e., from Fitzgerald's best known book: "Two bad drives met. :O," "Gatsby is so emo. Who cries about his girlfriend while eating breakfast... IN THE POOL?"). A brainchild of college students, Aciman and his roommate Emmett Rensin, at the University of Chicago, Twitterature is really irreverent. But it's also something which, as with everything else in the digital age, can't help but providing your literary knowledge with burst of quirky ingenuity. It might not be Cliffs Notes, but it's definitely a trip. Readers should be warned that this book is definitely *adult* in its humor. (818.607 ACIMAN)

King Lear / a graphic novel by Gareth Hinds; based on the play by William Shakespeare

For anyone who's ever been scared off by Shakespeare's plays (and accompanying film adaptations) owing to the difficult language barrier, there are now a variety of simply related, and surprisingly adept graphic-format versions which have steadily emerged over the past few years. Gareth Hinds, author and artist behind the successful Beowulf long form comic book (YP FIC HINDS), has now applied his hand to one of the great bard's tragic masterpieces. Hinds' caretaking of King Lear is refreshingly lucid and manageable, effortlessly eliciting Shakespeare's searing tale of ambition and defiance tempered by the passing of generations and family loyalty.

Clever with both the pen and the brush, the author displays both an artist's skill and a knack for getting the most out of what the play tries to say, his watercolored texture subtly producing the pained expressions of Lear, his creeping madness, and the individuality of his three daughters all plagued by fortune. All the while an odiously developing maelstrom develops in the heavens above, culminating with a brilliantly evocative conclusion. Even in abridged form with accompanying footnotes, the language is still a bit of a barrier but the reader can better get a handle on the breadth of the content, the meat of the moral conundrum and the depth of emotion as its drawn across the page in brisk though never understated fashion. While Lear is his most recently published work, Hinds other graphic adaptations of classic literature available include The Odyssey and The Merchant of Venice. (822.33 SHAKESPE)

The Book of Air and Shadows / by Michael Gruber

Michael Gruber holds a Ph.D. in Marine Biology, has been a federal official for the Environmental Protection Agency and was a political advisor and speech writer for the Carter administration. Before banking off his own name as a novelist, Gruber was generally acknowledged as the primary ghostwriter for his cousin Robert K. Tanenbaum whose "Butch Karp" novels became worldwide bestsellers. His 2007 literary thriller The Book of Air and Shadows explores the possibility of an undiscovered Shakespearean work and the madcap race to claim the prize.

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When an antiquarian bookstore in central Manhattan mysteriously burns down, store clerk and film student Albert Crosetti thinks he's out of a job. But while sifting through the rubble, he finds a strange book inside of which are remnants of an ages-old, handwritten manuscript. Though the writing on the parchment is English, it's very old English ("Of the lodgeres heere the greater parte be drovers & some plaiers," p. 214) and Crosetti spends the remainder of his day trying to decipher the oddly composed document, soon reaching the determination that he's reading a correspondence piece authored by an Elizabethan-era soldier acting as an aid-de-camp to the royal throne.

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Meanwhile Jake Mishkin is a frightened, paranoid and somewhat cranky intellectual property lawyer currently hiding out from a gang of Russian mobsters. A few months previous, Jake had agreed to advise a panicked English professor on how to secure the rights to 17th century letter which may pinpoint the location of an unknown Shakespeare play. Two days after their meeting, the professor was found tortured to death and Jake was being pursued by the same menacing assortment of perpetrators. But when fate brings Jake into contact with Albert Crosetti, who ironically knows about another similar old letter, the pair escape New York and begin their own daring adventure to follow the case's trail to England and claim the prized manuscript.

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Gruber's first standalone novel (he's published a detective-mystery trilogy and a short story collection previous) is a great literary thriller, effectively and comprehensively meshing the genres of classic literature, worthwhile history, epistolary intrigue and contemporary suspense into one fascinating story. It's a book equally dominated by both the past and the present, coupling the legendary William Shakespeare, his life and times, with the conventional hurly-burly of New York City, London and further quagmires of modernity. As well, it alludes to the current legal matters involving intellectual property, an author's rights and public domain--all relevant ongoing issues of today which inevitably tie us to the world of the past. (FIC GRUBER)