I was oh so tempted to write this in three lines. I think I have a fixed layout here and everything, so it makes sense. It would have ended up something like:
Novels in Three Lines, given as a birthday present, was read in two days by Judah Nielsen, Campbell, CA. A happy birthday.
Unfortunately, that doesn't really convey much. What we have here is a collection of short news items that were written by Felix Feneon, a Frenchman, in a distinctive style. There are some 1200 of them, many involving stabbings, shootings, suicides, drownings, and acid scaldings.
Scheid, of Dunkirk, fired three times at his wife. Since he missed every shot, he decided to aim at his mother-in-law, and connected.
So what makes them novels?
Well, nothing more than a French pun, really. The same word, nouvelles, can be used to mean either novels or news, and the translator has taken the approach that these are the novels Feneon didn't write. Many of them could be expanded into short stories or novels, and there is no doubt that the author makes his style felt in these very short spaces, but they are, in fact, non-fiction.
When this was given to me, it had a post-it note on it that said "This is the ultimate toilet book–you can read three novels while you take a leak." That seems like one of the two good solid uses for the book, the other being, perhaps, a coffee table book. Or if you choose to read it cover to cover, it shouldn't take long. A couple of hours, perhaps.