How to play Literature

1. The deck: eight half-suits

Take out the four 8s. Each suit then splits into a low half (2 to 7) and a high half (9 to Ace). That gives eight half-suits (also called sets or books) of six cards each. Winning a half-suit scores one point.

Players sit around the table alternating teams, so you never sit next to a teammate. All 48 cards are dealt out: 8 each with six players.

2. Your turn: ask an opponent

On your turn you ask one opponent for one specific card. There are two rules:

• You must already hold at least one card from that half-suit.
• You may not ask for a card you already hold.

A hit keeps your turn going. A miss passes the turn to the player you asked. If you run out of cards, you sit out and your teammates keep playing.

3. Why you have to listen

Every ask, even a miss, tells the whole table three things. That's the whole game:

1. The asker holds a card from that half-suit. Otherwise they couldn't ask.
2. The asker doesn't hold the card they named. Otherwise they wouldn't ask.
3. On a “no”, the opponent doesn't have it either. On a “yes”, everyone now knows exactly where that card is.

Nobody may write anything down and teammates can't share information, so you have to remember it. In this app's Classic mode each ask is spoken once and then it's gone. Practice mode keeps a move log while you learn.

4. Claiming a half-suit

On your turn you can claim a half-suit by saying exactly which teammate holds each of its six cards (including your own).

• Every card right: your team scores the half-suit.
• Any card wrong, or one held by the other team: the half-suit goes to the opponents.

When all eight half-suits are claimed, the team with more wins. A 4–4 draw is possible.

Strategy for serious players

A short history

Nobody is sure where or when Literature was invented, but southern India is the most likely place of origin from the accounts collected so far. One family recalls the game being played in Madras State (now Tamil Nadu) in the 1940s and 1950s by a military doctor and his daughters during the British Raj. It has long been played in Madurai, Erode and Chennai, and in engineering college hostels in Kerala.

It travelled too. Another player learned it from his father, who played it at Columbia University in the 1950s after growing up in Kerala. In North America it's often called Fish, Canadian Fish or Russian Fish, a nod to its cousin Go Fish.

Its family is the quartet games, where you collect sets by asking other players for cards. That family includes Go Fish, the British Happy Families, and Authors, a 19th-century American game built around famous writers. The name “Literature” may well come from that link to Authors.

Fun facts

• Once the cards are dealt there's no more luck. No draws, no dice. Everything after that is memory, deduction and nerve.
• A tie is built in: 8 half-suits split 4–4. Some groups add the 8s and both jokers as a ninth half-suit so ties can't happen.
• In Canadian Fish you “declare” a set instead of claiming it.
• Some players remove the 7s instead of the 8s, making A–6 and 8–K the halves.
• An uncommon variant allows bluffing: asking for a card you already hold to mislead the table. It's rarely played because it gets complicated fast.
• Twelve- and even sixteen-player games have been tried. Four players is generally thought too easy.
• Some house rules let a player claim at any moment, even on an opponent's turn, which rewards whoever finishes the deduction first.

House rules you'll meet

• High books score double: the high half-suits are worth 2 points.
• Last card announced: players must say when they're down to one card.
• Instant declaration: a complete half-suit in one hand must be claimed at once.
• Team chooses: after a claim, the claiming team picks who asks next.

This app plays the standard rules: claims on your own turn, and a wrong claim gives the set to the opponents.