Skip to main content

DailyLit: Reading in instalments

I recently discovered that it is possible to subscribe to literature on the Web. It is by no means a new thing – after all, some of the most popular classic novelists, such as Dumas and Dickens, wrote some their books in instalments that were eagerly awaited by readers. I decided to try it, and have subscribed to a book I started reading a couple of months ago but have kept pushing aside for other books. Now I can simply read it during my coffee breaks and lunch break at work, instead of at home where I am surrounded by scores of other books that keep diverting my attention from it. The book is The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins. For the next 286 weekdays I will receive it in instalments in my inbox, from DailyLit.

It will be interesting to see if I manage to stick with it, or whether at some point I will go back to the book.

I think this is an excellent way for people who think they are to busy to read books to relax for a few minutes every day over a good book. DailyLit mostly offers older books with expired copyright, among them many classics, but they have now started offering newer books that are published under a creative commons licence. They have something for most tastes, so check them out.
Labels:

Comments

Lisa said…
I do this at work too. I signed up for 3 or 4 at a time, so that I could build up quite a few in a row while I read the first one. So now if I have to make a particularly stressful phone call or am on hold, I reward myself with an installment (or 4, depending on how exciting the story is.)

I've completed Little Women and Pride & Prejudice this way. I current am reading Sense & Sensibility, and have part or all of The Woman in White and Middlemarch waiting for me.

I LOVE this method of reading the classics. I know I'd be distracted at home, but at work? Nothing better to do! (but, um. Work.)
July 27, 2007 8:09 pm
Bibliophile said…
Hehe, I know what you mean (about work).

I'm quite grateful to them for including the "receive the next instalment immediately" feature, because it enabled me to to get up to where I had stopped reading the book instead of having to wait 30 days to pick up where I left off or reread several chapters.
July 30, 2007 1:32 pm
JoanneMarie Faust said…
I love Daily Lit. I tell people about it all the time. I've been lagging with my reading of Moll Flanders, though. I love that it comes in 2-3 minute reading installments. I can read one while I'm on hold, or in between tasks at work. I can't wait to pick out my next book.

I read Villette and was thrilled that I could just keep Google translator open on my desktop and fit in any French phrases that appeared. While reading at home I kept being disappointed by my inability to have passages instantly translated for me.
August 06, 2007 7:58 pm
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Book 7: Shadow of the Sun by Ryszard Kapuściński (reading notes)

-This reads like fiction - prose more beautiful than one has come to expect from non-fiction and many of the chapters are structured like fiction stories. There is little continuity between most of the chapters, although some of the narratives or stories spread over more than one chapter. This is therefore more a collection of short narratives than a cohesive entirety. You could pick it up and read the chapters at random and still get a good sense of what is going on. -Here is an author who is not trying to find himself, recover from a broken heart, set a record, visit 30 countries in 3 weeks or build a perfectly enviable home in a perfectly enviable location, which is a rarity within travel literature, but of course Kapuściński was in Africa to work, and not to travel for spiritual, mental or entertainment purposes (he was the Polish Press Agency's Africa correspondent for nearly 30 years). -I have no way of knowing how well Kapuściński knew Africa - I have never been there...
Post a Comment
Read more

How to make a simple origami bookmark

Here are some instructions on how to make a simple origami (paper folding) bookmark: Take a square of paper. It can be patterned origami paper, gift paper or even office paper, just as long as it’s easy to fold. The square should not be much bigger than 10 cm/4 inches across, unless you intend to use the mark for a big book. The images show what the paper should look like after you follow each step of the instructions. The two sides of the paper are shown in different colours to make things easier, and the edges and fold lines are shown as black lines. Fold the paper in half diagonally (corner to corner), and then unfold. Repeat with the other two corners. This is to find the middle and to make the rest of the folding easier. If the paper is thick or stiff it can help to reverse the folds. Fold three of the corners in so that they meet in the middle. You now have a piece of paper resembling an open envelope. For the next two steps, ignore the flap. Fold the square diagonally in two. Yo...
25 comments
Read more

Bibliophile discusses Van Dine’s rules for writing detective stories

Writers have been putting down advice for wannabe writers for centuries, about everything from how to captivate readers to how to build a story and write believable characters to getting published. The mystery genre has had its fair share, and one of the best known advisory essays is mystery writer’s S.S. Van Dine’s 1928 piece “Twenty rules for writing detective stories.” I mentioned in one of my reviews that I might write about these rules. Well, I finally gave myself the time to do it. First comes the rule (condensed), then what I think about it. Here are the Rules as Van Dine wrote them . (Incidentally, check out the rest of this excellent mystery reader’s resource: Gaslight ) The rules are meant to apply to whodunnit amateur detective fiction, but the main ones can be applied to police and P.I. fiction as well. I will discuss them mostly in this context, but will also mention genres where the rules don’t apply and authors who have successfully and unsuccessfully broken the rules. 1...
9 comments
Read more