While we in America debate ebooks and other forms of digital consumption, Finland is the latest country to embrace the text-message novel. THE LAST MESSAGE, published yesterday, tells the story of a fictitious IT-executive in Finland who resigns from his job and travels throughout Europe and India, keeping in touch with his friends and relatives only through text messages.His messages, and the replies — roughly 1,000 altogether — are listed in chronological order in the 332-page novel written by Finnish author Hannu Luntiala. The texts are rife with grammatical errors and abbreviations commonly used in regular SMS traffic.

"I believe that, at the end of the day, a text message may reveal much more about a person than you would initially think," said Luntiala, who also is head of a company that keeps databases on people living in Finland. Sari Havukainen, spokeswoman at Finnish publishing house Tammi, said the company is considering translating the book into other languages.