We have updated our Privacy Policy Please take a moment to review it. By continuing to use this site, you agree to the terms of our updated Privacy Policy.
John Crace’s Digested Read first appeared in in February 2000 and has been running ever since. Each week Crace reduces a new book – anything from a Booker Prize winner to a Nigella cookery book is fair game – to 700 words in a parody of the plot, style, dialogue and themes. Or lack of them. The Digested Read has not just become an institution for readers; it is read and enjoyed by publishers and authors too. So long as it is not their book being digested. A few years ago Crace wrote Brideshead Abbreviated, A Digested Read of the 20th Century. This is the 21st Century. So far.
Newsletter Signup
By clicking ‘Sign Up,’ I acknowledge that I have read and agree to Hachette Book Group’s Privacy Policy and Terms of Use
Reviews
I've read all these books at least twice - and now I've read John Crace's digested versions I wonder why I bothered.
A swift kick up the backside to some of modern literature's most iconic works. Accurate, merciless and very, very funny.
For the last 10 years [Crace's] 'Digested Reads' have been reason enough to buy the Guardian. Taking a well-known novel, he gives a brief distillation of the plot while capturing - often perfectly - the tone of its author. At the same time, he jabs a sharpened elbow into their pomposities and limitations.