S by JJ Abrams and Doug Dorst is a brilliant and consuming read. is supposed to be an early 20th century novel about a man with amnesia taken onto a mysterious pirate ship where time moves at a different pace than on the land. The novel is written by an enigmatic author, V.M. Straka who was implicated in many political assassinations and whose true identity remains a mystery. The novel is footnoted throughout, and the footnotes themselves are odd and often unrelated to the text. Here comes the cool part: throughout the margins, the novel has comments in two different handwritings. The original commenter, Eric, has been through the book at least once before the second person, Jenny, picks it up. The two of them begin their own relationship in the margins of the book. They try to figure out the true identity of the author and to solve the codes that are written into the footnotes. The codes are real (and hard!), and you could spend hours decoding and working parallel to Jenny and Eric. As they get closer to the truth behind VM Straka, they are pulled into his dangerous world of spies. s notes appear in multiple colors throughout, representing their many passes through the book. Tucked into the pages are notes and postcards to each other, newspaper clippings, and other bits of research.
"A story unlike any I’ve ever read. Buy the old-fashioned paper version and have fun! If you get lost there are webpages devoted to the book and the codes, and various opinions on the best way to read the book.”