Hello everybody!

After having devoured TBOE, my husband brought me Something Rotten, which I now accidentally read BEFORE reading the first three! To make matters worse, the rest of the series will definitely not arrive here before Monday. My husband will be test-reading Something Rotten in German this weekend, I wonder whether it will work?!

In Acute Withdrawal,

The Cat

Hi, and welcome! Don't worry; lots of people have read the books in random order. Actually, that gives me an idea… have a random number generator give page numbers in a random order and try to read a book in that order. That would be fun…

Anyway, having read Something Rotten might not have been the best choice to start with, because it clears up some loose ends that the previous books left hanging, which means you've now read spoilers for the previous books. On the other hand, I suppose there must be questions you have now that will only be cleared up by reading the previous books, so in that sense you get to experience the same amount of suspense as if you had read them the right way around.

I kind of feel like I could develop this into a sort of all-encompassing Theory of Nonlinear Literature, and may write a paper and take the academic world by storm. Want to co-author?

Or you could just check out the Nextian Chat section of the fforum instead, and be offered pie and cake, and possibly tea or sushi.

Thank you! Yes, I am indeed full of questions and will have to read books 1-3. And I really like your idea of your Theory of Nonlinear Literature and would be delighted to be the guinea pig and the co-author, but am slightly afraid of meeting myself on page 95 after having read page 167...

I will remember the Nextian Chat section when I get hungry.. sounds like a wonderful place!

Oooh, not only Nonlinear but also recursive and self-referencing! Yay! (You'll have to forgive me; I'm reading the book Godel, Escher, Bach right now and it's all about self-reference. And I'm nerdy like that.)

Lady Teaspoon tells me she sometimes listens to audiobooks on shuffle, but as far as I know she has only tried it with books she has already read in their traditional order.

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Metaphors be with you!

I might want to try that some day…sounds like fun!

but wouldn't the missing or not missing chapters of 13, skew a non-linear reader? and I wonder what the residence in book word would have to say about non-linear reading.

I guess you would also have to work up to harder works of fiction. however I wonder what kind of results you would get if you read nonfiction.

Non-linear nonfiction? double negative perhaps?

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by the way...I've been convicted of Gramatical Homicide, and charged 18 years to life, so don't bother telling me about all the spelling mistakes. It's already on my record.

Not quite what you were meaning, I know, but there is already a quite a lot of non-fiction written where the intention is that it is read in a non-linear fashion. I can't speak for others here, but if a want to read about a particular topic in an Encyclopædia I tend to go straight to it rather than start at the first page and keep going until I get to the bit I want. Admittedly I then chicken out and read the section I want in a linear fashion.

Consider spreading your non-linear reading so that you are not constrained to only one book. Chapter 1 from TEA, perhaps, then 2 from LiaGB, etc. You are still keep a sense of numerical order without linearity! (It may not make much sense with Jasper Fforde's stories, but I doubt you would notice much difference if you apply it to a Steve Aylett's series - and I still love those books)

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My computer beat me at chess, but I won at kickboxing

what if you tried non-linear reading with books that arn't in the same series, like the thrusday next series and Nursery Crime series, or better yet two series not related in the slightest.

but I guess you would call that non-linear, non-series reading. though I wonder if you would ever get anything near a congitive plot.

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by the way...I've been convicted of Gramatical Homicide, and charged 18 years to life, so don't bother telling me about all the spelling mistakes. It's already on my record.

You know what would be fun? Reading all the Thursday Next books in lexicographical order by chapter title! That is, take all the chapters from all four books (or five, if you wait until July) and sort them by title, then read the chapters in that order!

Maybe we should start a topic : how many "other" ways can you read a book?

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by the way...I've been convicted of Gramatical Homicide, and charged 18 years to life, so don't bother telling me about all the spelling mistakes. It's already on my record.

If you do, may I suggest Nextian Chat: Some of the people out here in the real world need protecting.

i was thinking binary....but that probably wouldnt be a good idea


seeing as how i dont know binary.

do any of you?



p.s.
does anyone know how i can get to jurisfiction?

PLEASE! Don't get Puck started on Binary again. (Visit Nextian to find out what happened last time [www.jasperfforde.com] (A hint: It was Morse that started it all. Binary was relatively easy. By the time we got to semaphore people were reduced to gibbering wrecks.)

(edited to provide link)

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My computer beat me at chess, but I won at kickboxing



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/24/2007 07:51AM by SkidMarks.

aha......

Aha! I've just returned from a class:

and have figured out a type of writting where non-liner reading would actually make a story work...

Postmodernism, read non-liner.

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by the way...I've been convicted of Gramatical Homicide, and charged 18 years to life, so don't bother telling me about all the spelling mistakes. It's already on my record.

why dont we just enjoy the series the way it is, instead of looking
for ways to improve something that you cant really improve?


besides.......has anyone mentioned hyrogliphs?

I was thinking a picture for each thousand words...that would be an interesting way to read. Though I wonder what the pictures would be.

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by the way...I've been convicted of Gramatical Homicide, and charged 18 years to life, so don't bother telling me about all the spelling mistakes. It's already on my record.

i think an arrow would be appropriate for thurs.
and maybe a marshmallow for the dodos.

How about a dodo for the dodos...

There are essentially two types of heiroglyph - one where the glyphs directly represent the concept: Dodo=a dodo. Or the other option is where the letters just happen to look like pictures.

Rob

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That statement is either so deep it would take a lifetime to fully comprehend every particle of its meaning, or it is a load of absolute tosh. Which is it, I wonder?
Terry Pratchett, Hogfather