PETER SAGAL, Host:
We want to remind everybody that they can join us most weeks back home at the Chase Auditorium in downtown Chicago. For tickets and more information go to chicagopublicradio.org. Or you can find a link at our website, waitwait.npr.org.
Right now, Panel, some questions for you. All of your questions right now are going to be about the brave new high tech culture, the culture of the high tech world. Paula, five of 2007's top ten best-selling novels in Japan were originally written on what?
PAULA POUNDSTONE: Post-its.
SAGAL: No.
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MO ROCCA: Haikus.
SAGAL: They were written in little short bursts though.
POUNDSTONE: They were written in little short bursts.
SAGAL: People did it often while riding the train.
POUNDSTONE: Twitter?
SAGAL: No. It's a great way to use up all those extra minutes.
POUNDSTONE: Minutes? I have no idea. Graffiti.
SAGAL: No. Mo?
ROCCA: On a cell phone.
SAGAL: Yes, on cell phones.
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SAGAL: Cell phone novels, the biggest thing in Japan. For example, a young woman who calls herself Rin typed out her novel about young tragic love on her cell phone during her commute to and from work. It had a lot of dialogue, not much boring description, fewer vowels than your traditional novel.
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SAGAL: Printed in book form, it became a huge best-seller. This makes us wonder what the next big evolution in literature after this will be. And we thought it might be novels as Twitter messages, Twitter tweets.
POUNDSTONE: Precisely. I believe I predicted that.
SAGAL: You did.
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SAGAL: It has to be 140 characters or less. So here are some examples of novels as Twitter tweets. For example, here's "The Grapes of Wrath."
: Times are hard. Sister breast feeding homeless guy. I'm so outta here.
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SAGAL: Here's one that I got from an actual Twitter user named Brandon Fox. It's "Pride and Prejudice."
: I hate that guy. Actually, he's kind of hot.
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SAGAL: And here, "Lolita."
: Message removed for violating terms of service.
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(SOUNDBITE OF APPLAUSE) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
