As with everything, the progression of the written word has been driven by convenience. The scroll was more efficient than the clay tablet, the book more user-friendly than the scroll. But they are all still essentially linear. Start at one end and follow the story through to its conclusion. A thousand (and then some) years ago, the rabbis added a sophistication to normal typography. Instead of a page of text following on to another page of text, each page of their Mishnah contained several related propositions. Importantly, the reader was offered the choice of where to read, and how to connect the ideas. What about taking this concept from the religious to the secular. Instead of simultaneous events in a novel being forced to take place on a linear plane - paragraph by paragraph, chapter following on from chapter, we could split the pages into zones. Let the reader dart about the page deciding where to focus their attention?
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