Novel 2.0

This is a software program (with optional hardware optical reader) that builds on two recent social phenomena: the idea in Web 2.0 of internet readers also being internet creators; and the theory of literary criticism that Jacques Derrida called deconstruction, which posits that the author is not the owner of the meaning of a piece of literature, but the reader is.

This software allows you to take the text of a book and make programmatic alterations. A simplistic example: you could take the text of Pride and Prejudice, and replace the names "Elizabeth Bennet" and "Mr. Darcy" with your name and the name of the unsuspecting colleague you have a crush on. Or you could input the names of stores in your local megamall and have them replace the locations in Around the World in 80 Days. You could program the Derri-Do to insert in-jokes. And so on.

Textual additions can be input by the user or can be captured from other works of literature, non-fiction, wikipedia, or any other written source. Textual alterations can be made as simple replacements; as additions after keywords; with more complicated custom algorithms; or with built-in options such as a selection of alternate prose styles, "random shuffle", "merge", "porn", and a variety of joke formats (poop, fart, etc).