Read it quick: Author James Patterson's new book will get destroyed in 24 hours

American author James Patterson’s new novel Private Vegas has a digital version of the book that will be available only for 24 hours. The site for the digital novel has gone live here. According to the website, users will need to get a secret code, which will help them unlock the books (only 1000 books will be available) and they will have just one day to finish reading. As they read on, each page will destroyed. They can also view the reading progress of others who have managed to get their hands on the book. You can also steal time from others, although you’ll need to log in via Facebook to do that. The actual physical copies of the book, the ones that don’t destruct after one day, will go on sale on 26 January. [caption id=“attachment_2059279” align=“alignleft” width=“380”] Screenshot of the self-destructing book website.[/caption] According to this post on The Verge this isn’t the first time someone has tried to create a self-destructing piece of literary work using a digital media. The report points out that “in 1992, William Gibson released the 300-line poem Agrippa (A Book of the Dead) on floppy disk, which was programmed to encrypt itself after a single use.” Mashable quotes Patterson as saying, “Publishing, in my opinion, needs to get out there competing with everything else in the world — movies, television, etc. etc. It just seems to me I’m in a position to do that. I went to a very good small advertising agency [and said], ‘Let’s do something that’s relevant to what I do, very unusual, that will draw attention to books and this book in particular.” Advertising agency Mother came up with the concept for the book. Oh and Patterson has also planned to release an actual self-destructing book, which will explode for real, says a report in New York Times. The one who gets the book will additionally get “a first-class flight to an undisclosed location, two nights’ stay in a luxury hotel, 14-karat gold-plated binoculars, a five-course dinner with Mr. Patterson,” says the report. The cost of the book a whopping $300,000.  Oh and there will be a bomb squad to deal with all the explosions. We’re still not sure why anyone would pay $300,000 to watch a book they bought explode into pieces, but we’re guessing the only really crazy fans would sign up for this.