Way, way back before the internet was invented, there was a crude and ancient way that people used to share information on a primitive form of parchment made out of crushed trees. The parchment was called ‘paper’, and on the parchment words would be printed, forming what people would refer to as a ‘book’.
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As a youngster, I remember that, before bed, my father would tell me of wondrous things from times long ago. As well as other things, such as penny-farthing bicycles, horse-drawn carriages and ‘the plague’, he told me about these quaint and loveable things called ‘books’.
According to the source of all human knowledge, Wikipedia, in 1905 when Twitter was invented, books became obsolete except for one, last magical internet book called Facebook. The inventors of Twitter decreed that no-one would ever need any more than 140 characters to express themselves ever again, and all books were burnt in a massive bonfire. Well, almost all.
When I grew up, being a fan of nostalgia, I did a bit of research and discovered that, with careful digging, it is possible to still find books in this day and age. It became an obsession of mine, and I was eventually able to find and even read a few of these artefacts.
My research has taught me that there were two main types of books, non-fiction ones (which were a bit like the History Channel) and fiction, where everything was just made up (a bit like reality television). Fiction was collected in books called ‘novels’.
This discovery led me to finally decide to sit down the other day and convert some of my favourite novels into tweet form, so that they can be enjoyed by a new generation of youngsters.
So I present to you, ten of my favourite novels in #140orless…
1. Lord of the Rings (#140orless): Little, hairy people + wizard/dwarves/elves take a really long time to triumph over evil.
2. Heart of Darkness (#140orless): Europeans help destroy Africa, feel varying degrees of guilt induced nostalgia as a result.
3. Jock of the Bushveld (#140orless): the loyal, loveable dog dies in the end.
4. Lolita (#140orless): Dirty old pervert molests 12-year-old, expects sympathy.
5. Eat, Pray, Love (#140orless): Lady overeats in Italy, does yoga in India, gets laid in Bali, lives happily ever after.
6. Catcher in the Rye (#140orless): Young white dude complains.
7. On the Road (#140orless): Beatnik boasts about how many times he got laid and high on his road trip.
8. Naked Lunch (#140orless): Drugged-up author decides it’s cooler to not make sense.
9: The Bible (#140orless): God makes world. God makes people, gets angry with them & makes them follow rules.
10: War and Peace (#140orless): France invades Russia and… Sorry, I fell asleep at my keyboard.
If you really want to, you can seek these novels out and even read them on things like iPads and Kindles. Although now of course, thanks to me, you really don’t need to.
