I'm trying to imagine the conversation. "Hey guys, you know that old English chick, Jane Austen, who Anne Hathaway played the other year? Didn't she, like, write a book where a handsome dude gets his shirt wet? I've heard it's pretty good, but I know what would make it even better – zombies."

Sometimes I despair, I really do. In a move which makes the very worst of fusion cuisine look tame, an American publisher has decided to combine the latest publishing craze – zombies – with one of the most enduring books ever written. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies "features the original text of Jane Austen's beloved novel with all-new scenes of bone-crunching zombie action". In an "insanely funny … comedy of manners", Elizabeth "wages war against hordes of flesh-eating undead", while dealing with the distractions of "the haughty and arrogant" Mr Darcy.

Okay, I know it's a joke. I haven't read it (it's not out until April), it could be genius - you never know - and I do like the juxtaposition of "Jane Austen is the author of Sense and Sensibility, Persuasion, Mansfield Park, and other masterpieces of English literature", and "Seth Grahame-Smith is the author of How to Survive a Horror Movie and The Big Book of Porn". But really. How low can you go?

And that cover is going to give me nightmares.