New York Public Library Turns Classic Books Into Insta-Novels

Instagram - just a vapid repository of selfies, memes, cute dogs pics and holiday snaps, right? Well, as of this week, it's also the place to get your literary fix, thanks to a brilliant new initiative from the New York Public Library.

Created in partnership with Mother New York, the Insta Novels project will broadcast classic tomes through the modern medium of social media by turning them into Instagram Stories, and in doing so, hopefully reach a whole new generation of readers. Some of the platform's best-known and most popular artists have been roped in to design the digitised books, which feature Georgia-type font and a warmer white background for ease of reading, along with stills imagery, gifs and videos.

To kick the series off, readers can take a tumble down the rabbit hole with Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, featuring illustrations by designer Magoz [below]. The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman (illustrated by New York design and production company Buck) and Kafka’s shiver-worthy short story The Metamorphosis (illustrated by César Pelizer) are also set for release over the coming months.

So how does it work? Each page of the book becomes a slide in the Story, so you just rest your thumb on the screen to hold the page, and lift to turn the page. If you flip quickly through the screen, a flipbook-style animation emerges. And if you want to save the book for later, simply hit the Instagram 'Highlights' feature.

Check out the video below to see more about the process:

“Instagram unknowingly created the perfect bookshelf for this new kind of online novel,” says Corinna Falusi, Mother’s partner and chief creative officer. “From the way you turn the pages, to where you rest your thumb while reading, the experience is already unmistakably like reading a paperback novel. We have to promote the value of reading, especially with today’s threats to American system of education.”

"This project is directly in line with the Library's mission to make the world's knowledge accessible to all," adds Carrie Welch, the New York Public Library's chief of external relations. "It's appropriate that one of the works we're using is The Metamorphosis, because in collaboration with Mother, we are completely transforming the way people look at this popular social media platform, and reimagining the way people access the classics."