Thursday, June 7, 2007

What The ...

I just picked up what must be the most interestingly laid out book I have ever seen. I will attempt to describe it but words may fail me.
The book in question is Only Revolutions. The Democracy of Two Set Out and Chronologically Arranged by Mark Z. Danielewski. The story is about Hillary and Sam two teenagers who claim to have been around forever, and who are always sixteen. So far so good, now comes the interesting parts.
The book begins with Sam's story, or you can turn the book upside down and go to the back and begin Hillary's story. Each page is split in two between Sam and Hillary. Sam's story begins in 1863 and Hillary's begins where Sam's ends in 1963 and finishes in 2063.
All the letter o's in Sam's story are printed green, and all Hillary's are printed gold. This helps the reader remember who they are reading about.
The publishers recommend that readers read eight pages of one story and then eight pages of the other, and continue like this until they finish the book.
The writing is a series of short sentences that attempt to approximate spoken word and thought balloons. Any more than this is too hard to describe. One to look out for, just don't expect an easy read.

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