This Times article about the newest literary genre is just ridiculous. My book history professor would totally freak out about the following

Until recently, cellphone novels — composed on phone keypads by young women wielding dexterous thumbs and read by fans on their tiny screens — had been dismissed in Japan as a subgenre unworthy of the country that gave the world its first novel, “The Tale of Genji,” a millennium ago. Then last month, the year-end best-seller tally showed that cellphone novels, republished in book form, have not only infiltrated the mainstream but have come to dominate it.

Apparently people in Japan are composing and reading novels on their cell phones by the hundreds. I’ve never heard of this until just now but its implications are pretty staggering. I couldn’t imagine doing either one of those things on my cell phone. It does make me wonder if the Japanese language is easier to get across in text messaging, because of their alphabet works, but I really don’t know. According to the article it would appear that a lot of literary figures in Japan are really frightened that this will destroy traditional Japanese novels. In girl I think that people reading anything is a good thing,s however one passage from the article did concern me:

“They don’t read works by professional writers because their sentences are too difficult to understand, their expressions are intentionally wordy, and the stories are not familiar to them,” she said.

I would love to get my hands on one of these “cell phone novels.” I poked around Google but couldn’t find anything let me know if you have better luck.