# Using less than 100 words, convince me to read your favorite novel or short story. **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [October 20, 2011, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-less-than-100-words-convince-me-to-read-your-favorite-novel-or-short-story/600276 "2011-10-20T17:52:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 12\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-less-than-100-words-convince-me-to-read-your-favorite-novel-or-short-story/600276/1 "2011-10-20T17:52:31Z")
The 100 word limit is firm; violate it and you will be forced to watch Jane Velasquez-Mitchell servicing her mistress, Nancy Grace. Anybody up for it? ETA: for the challenge, that is. If you actually want to watch JVM & NG getting it on, I’m not sure I want to talk to you. ---
**Author:** ![Chef\_Troy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/85f322/32.png) [@Chef\_Troy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chef_Troy)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 7:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-less-than-100-words-convince-me-to-read-your-favorite-novel-or-short-story/600276/2 "2011-10-20T19:34:54Z")
Do the book’s title and author count toward the 100-word limit? I don’t want to take the SLIGHTEST chance of having to face those consequences. ---
**Author:** ![Galileo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/85e7bf/32.png) [@Galileo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Galileo)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 7:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-less-than-100-words-convince-me-to-read-your-favorite-novel-or-short-story/600276/3 "2011-10-20T19:35:56Z")
## Fewer. — Persuade. Jane Velez-Mitchell. your favorite novel or short story 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-less-than-100-words-convince-me-to-read-your-favorite-novel-or-short-story/600276/4 "2011-10-20T19:56:41Z")
> [@Chef\_Troy](#): > > Do the book’s title and author count toward the 100-word limit? I don’t want to take the SLIGHTEST chance of having to face those consequences. I’m going to say the title & author don’t count, nor the “by” in between them. ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-less-than-100-words-convince-me-to-read-your-favorite-novel-or-short-story/600276/5 "2011-10-20T20:17:40Z")
Can I choose a random book? I don’t have a favorite. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-less-than-100-words-convince-me-to-read-your-favorite-novel-or-short-story/600276/6 "2011-10-20T20:30:22Z")
You want cocky? I’ll limit myself to merely _ **quoting Wikipedia.** _ WE, by Yevgeny Zamyatin… > [@](#): > > …was written in response to the author’s personal experiences during the Russian revolution … George Orwell began Nineteen Eighty-Four some eight months after he read We in a French translation and wrote a review of it. Orwell is reported as _“saying that he was taking it as the model for his next novel.”_ Brown writes that for Orwell and certain others, We _“appears to have been the crucial literary experience”_ … We was the first work banned by Goskomizdat, the new Soviet censorship bureau ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-less-than-100-words-convince-me-to-read-your-favorite-novel-or-short-story/600276/7 "2011-10-20T20:42:27Z")
**We?** Really? I’ll go with John Barth’s **The Sot-Weed Factor** , an intricately plotted historical novel that is so much more – hilarious, bawdy, touching, and sometimes all three at once. Oddly enough, it’s based on a true story (including the secret of the sacred eggplant). The plot is delightfully convoluted – like riding a roller coaster in four dimensions. Characters appear, vanish, reappear, and turn out to be someone else altogether. There’s philosophy, the hero’s journey, literary references and kinky sex and it is one of the greatest 20th century novels. ---
**Author:** ![Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ecccb3/32.png) [@Skald\_the\_Rhymer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skald_the_Rhymer)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-less-than-100-words-convince-me-to-read-your-favorite-novel-or-short-story/600276/8 "2011-10-20T21:22:46Z")
> [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](#): > > You want cocky? I’ll limit myself to merely _ **quoting Wikipedia.** _ WE, by Yevgeny Zamyatin… As my great-great-great-grandmother said just before they hanged her for operating as a Russian spy, “Quoting is for sissies. I fyou have a point to make, use your own words.” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_other_waldo_pepper/32/12370_2.png) [@The\_Other\_Waldo\_Pepper](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Other_Waldo_Pepper)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-less-than-100-words-convince-me-to-read-your-favorite-novel-or-short-story/600276/9 "2011-10-20T21:25:40Z")
It’s 1984 – written in the USSR. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [October 20, 2011, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-less-than-100-words-convince-me-to-read-your-favorite-novel-or-short-story/600276/10 "2011-10-20T22:09:53Z")
“Flop Sweat” Harlan Ellison He wrote it on the fly in less than 3 hours, and when he read it aloud on the radio that evening, the city of Los Angeles wet itself. ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-less-than-100-words-convince-me-to-read-your-favorite-novel-or-short-story/600276/11 "2011-10-21T20:09:24Z")
“The Mountains of Mourning”, by Lois McMaster Bujold. She’s won four Hugos for her stories about the Vorkosigans. Reading this is a spoiler for the earlier works (the saga begins with Shards of Honor) but I didn’t care, I immediately started reading them too. Also, it’s a work of fiction that’s made me donate money to a charity. No other work of fiction has made me do that. The charity is Smile Train. ---
**Author:** ![Woeg](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/df705f/32.png) [@Woeg](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Woeg)\ **Post date:** [October 21, 2011, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/using-less-than-100-words-convince-me-to-read-your-favorite-novel-or-short-story/600276/12 "2011-10-21T20:25:31Z")
Roger Zelazny’s “A Night in the Lonesome October” Jack the Ripper attempts to save the world from Lovecraftian horrors with the assistance of his faithful, intelligent familiar, a shaggy dog named Snuff. Together, they work on completing the rituals that will keep the world safe, all while trying to figure out who might be their friends and enemies amongst various Victorian heroes and villains - Dracula, Dr. Frankenstein, the Wolfman, a mad monk, a great detective…but who serves what side isn’t always as clear as one might think. To them all, this is the Great Game, while to the world, it could be the beginning of the end!