Shock news of the week – Jane Austen, Samuel Pepys, Virginia Woolf are not only alive they are active users of Twitter. Each day you can read what authors from George Orwell to William Shakespeare think of the issues of the day.

The social network is packed with authors who are keen to share their thoughts with us. This blog post from PR Daily gives some of the examples of authors you can follow. But there are hundreds more from Samuel Johnson to Samuel Pepys. Some are a selection of quotes (like @DailyShakespeare), others are a random mix of facts and quotes from their works (like @Jane AustenLives) or, in the case of Pepys, they are meant to be entries from his diary for the day. Sadly that one seems to have run out of steam.

I’m not a great fan of Twitter – maybe because I find it hard to say anything meaningful in 140 characters. But I’ll give it a go for a few weeks to see if I pick up any gems.