What Are You Playing? Books!

Don’t love Nintendo? Love books? What if they crossbred? In the UK, people will soon be able to read classics on the Nintendo DS. COOL.

Nintendo, the Japanese video games has announced a deal with the publisher HarperCollins to make the classics available to read on its DS games consoles.

The unlikely partnership means that the names of computer game characters such as Donkey Kong and Mario will sit alongside the likes of Jane Austen and the Brontë sisters on the hand-held gadgets.

The 100 Classic Book Collection will cost about £20 and will be available initially only in Britain. However, if the collaboration is a success, Nintendo may expand the range of books available.

I’m a hopeless Nintendo girl who’s always one console behind — still replaying Twilight Princess on my GameCube ’cause I’m too broke to bother trying to search out a Wii — but this, should it make its way to our shores, is just one more reason to covet a DS. As well as a Wii, of course. I want to play that weird game that’s always advertised before movies. The one with the insane rabbits. That you play with your butt. Yep.