Caldeira”, which make up a sub-narrative, and then handwritten notes by various people, also fictional. These people’s notes, in different handwriting styles, make up a separate, second narrative. The novel has “normal” text, the primary narrative, footnotes by the fictional editor/translator, “F.X. If you didn’t have the slipcase you would probably be fooled. Abrams and written by novelist Doug Dorst. The actual book, called S., after the lead character, is explained only on its sealed slipcase as actually conceived by filmmaker J.J. Straka, complete with different publishing details, like “Winged Shoes Press”, and a Dewey Decimal library sticker on the spine ( 813.54 – Fiction written between 19). The book itself is designed to look like an old public library book, titled Ship of Theseus, that’s been written by someone called V.M. It is a long book which is a puzzle within a puzzle within a puzzle, a novel within a novel within a novel, and the short title is only on the slipcover. But the short title of this one is misleading. Authors now tend to go for long, descriptive names, rather than ones with one letter or an abbreviation. There are many books with extremely short, abbreviated, or one-letter books titles, a practice which is unpopular these days due to the prevalence of Internet marketing in which a title has to be differentiated in order to be found by search engines. Abrams is in the news right now as the director and co-author of the movie Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), but fans might not know of this book, published two years ago. Abrams, takes the Prize for Weirdest Novel and the one I found most physically difficult to read. This year I’ve read highly forgettable, beautifully written, distressing, hilarious and puzzling books. Abrams (Published by Mulholland Books, Little Brown Slipcase and package design by Hachette Book Group, Inc., 2013)

Ship of theseus novel