Yesterday while mowing I had the sudden thought that by now I should have read Moby Dick by Herman Melville. Ages ago I downloaded the ebook from Project Gutenberg, but my enthusiasm dropped off after about 20 minutes and later I just forgot to go back and start reading again.
In other words, I still haven't read Moby Dick.
This isn't a huge problem as far as world problems go. And anyway, I decided this year that if I don't like a book in the first 50 pages I'll just stop reading it. Life's too short.
And in fact life is too short for me to keep dithering about how to write this blog post, too. (I've been floundering around here for half an hour.) Does it matter why I've decided to read Moby Dick through DailyLit? No.
In summary: DailyLit - allows you to read books by instalment via RSS (feed reader) or email. Each instalment takes an average reader less than 5 minutes to read, and if you want more instalments, you can get them. It looks like many or most of the books are free, and there's a large range of categories.
I'm trying it. Moby Dick in 260 parts, starting like this:
Call me Ishmael. Some years ago--never mind how long precisely--having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off--then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can.
