Let's say you're in a bookstore, browsing the Recently Published titles. Suddenly, British troops burst in, guns blazing--they've come to take America back, just like Second-Amendment advocates always knew they would. You hug the ground and start assembling a flak jacket with whatever materials you have to hand. What do you reach for? What books are going to stop a bullet?

Don't panic. The folks at Electric Literature, a quarterly short-story anthology, have already done the research for you. In the following video, spokesman Tom Shillue dispenses a few bits of information that could mean the difference between life and death:

• You shouldn't reach for Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen. The ambitious, divisive novel lets the bullet pass right through. (Good news for U.K. booksellers who need to get rid of their incorrect editions. Just shoot 'em!)

• Did you get two Kindles for $89 on Black Friday? You might as well leave them home. Amazon's flagship device might be good for crowded trains, but in this scenario it may as well be crepe paper.

• Witz, a paperback novel by Joshua Cohen, holds up surprisingly well. As Shillue notes, the book survives "almost intact... Something came out the back here, but if it didn't stop the bullet, it did slow it down."

[Hat tip to The Atlantic's own Tumblr.]

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