I was thumbing through New Directions’ spring 2008 catalog and was somewhat surprised to see that they are taking the daring step of publishing B.S. Johnson’s “novel in a box” The Unfortunates as it was originally intended to be published.

What’s interesting here is that Johnson, who wrote this book in the 1960s, intended it to be published as a collection of chapters lying loose in a box. The reader was to withdraw a chapter randomly, read it, and continue on in this manner until all were read.