an exceptionally clever little novel

Online somewhere, I saw a discussion about Ella Minnow Pea by Mark Dunn.

It looked interesting, and so I picked it up at the library on my way home from work today.

It was so engaging, that I read it straight through!

It's the story of an island-nation that reveres the man who wrote the sentence, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." (Uses every letter of the alphabet.)

The country has a monument to this man, with the sentence on the top. When the letters of the sentence begin to drop off due to glue -failure, the citizens take it as a sign that they need to cease using those letters.

And the book, also, stops using them.

It's an excellent story, and obviously very clever. It's quite far into the loss of letters before the writing becomes difficult.

If you want a short book that will grab your attention, I'd recommend it!