Twitterature Downsizes Literary Classics

As if CliffNotes didn't already have Shakespeare and Steinbeck rolling in their graves, now there's "Twitterature," a new book that will set the literary world on its head.

Written by 19-year-old University of Chicago students Alexander Aciman and Emmett L. Rensin, the book features more than 80 classics, summed up in 20 Tweets or less, according to EW.com. As on the actual Twitter, each Tweet contains a maximum of 140 characters.

The result of this microblogging-meets-masterpiece experiment?

William Shakespeare's "Hamlet" is summed up as: "@Peopleof Denmark: Don't worry. Fortinbras will take care of thee. Peace."

EW.com has found some other classic spoilers included in "Twitterature."

For instance there's this from "Anna Karenina": "Alright, twenty rubles says that I can toss my bag in the air, run across the tracks, and catch it before the train arriv–"

In defense of "Twitterature," editor Will Hammond at Viking/Penguin, which published "Twitterature," has posted a statement on the book's Web site.

"Like all good pastiche, 'Twitterature' skewers the original work with pin-point accuracy - mocking its grandiosity, exposing absurd coincidences of plotting, parodying its subject's ticks, slips and oddities," Hammond writes. "The difference, though, and what makes this little collection particularly enjoyable, is that the joke falls just as heavily (well, probably more so) on Twitter."

Sorry kids, but to get the joke, you'll have to read the original first.