DailyLit.com

I recently discovered Dailylit.com, which would seem to be the ultimate triumph of the Internet over classic literature. It will send you moderate-sized portions of a book on a daily basis through email or RSS, so that you can read your Dickens or Hemingway without suffering the embarrassment of being seen with an actual (gasp!) tome in your hands. There are numerous classics available for free, and newer titles for the usual price of an ebook (though I’m not sure why you’d pay $5 for a book that will end up being scattered through your inbox in 100 installments).

Needless to say, I wasn’t sure how useful I would find the service, especially since I've never been able to get in the right frame of mind to read an ebook. When I’ve tried reading classics from Gutenberg.org, I generally find such a large block of text overwhelming, and give up after a few pages. Curious whether this “daily” format might help, I chose a classic (Pride and Prejudice, which I’ve always put off reading as a “girl’s book,” but recently very much enjoyed as a film) and set it to send the shortest amount possible per day, about half a chapter per email. At that rate, I’d finish Jane Austen’s classic in just 146 days! Heh.

It turns out, I’ve found that not only am I quite able to enjoy reading a novel in this form (at least one so well written as this), but that even after changing the settings to send three times as much text per day, I soon found myself repeatedly clicking the little link at the bottom of each email “to receive the next installment immediately.” For some reason, by breaking it up into manageable chunks, it’s easier to maintain my attention, even if I end up reading several portions in one sitting. In fact, I’ve read three-quarters of the book in the last 4 days, all in chapter and a half increments. I’m hooked.

So I guess that’s proof of my slavery to the Internet Age, but I can’t help but recommend the service, which provides a variety of options for how much and how often you want them to send portions of the book. My only complaints are that occasionally a paragraph break appears in the wrong place (not sure why) and it can feel a little unsettling to begin the next installment without having the previous one right in front of you. It sometimes takes a bit to remember what was happening (or even going back to the previous email for a reminder), especially when the previous day’s email ended in the middle of a chapter. Still, for a free service DailyLit is well worth checking out.

The Internet Fried My Brain

Interesting article in The Atlantic on the Internet’s impact on reading habits (HT Boundless Line):

Immersing myself in a book or a lengthy article used to be easy. My mind would get caught up in the narrative or the turns of the argument, and I’d spend hours strolling through long stretches of prose. That’s rarely the case anymore. Now my concentration often starts to drift after two or three pages. I get fidgety, lose the thread, begin looking for something else to do. I feel as if I’m always dragging my wayward brain back to the text. The deep reading that used to come naturally has become a struggle....

I’m not the only one. When I mention my troubles with reading to friends and acquaintances—literary types, most of them—many say they’re having similar experiences. The more they use the Web, the more they have to fight to stay focused on long pieces of writing.

I certainly empathize with this struggle to keep engaged with lengthy material. I rarely read anything online in full, unless I plan on quoting it, and I am easily distracted no matter what I’m reading. It’s particularly a problem if I’m sitting near my laptop, in which case I’m constantly fighting the urge to check my email, sitemeter, or favorite blogs. I have use of an office at my church, and when they finally decided to secure their wireless network, I was almost glad not to have the WEP key -- I get so much more done there without the temptation to hop online.

But I can’t say that I read any fewer books now than I ever did. Perhaps because I’ve been an Internet addict since at least sixth grade, I tend to automatically switch between different approaches to reading, from scanning, to reading quickly but in full, to slowly digesting with pencil in hand. My ability to concentrate depends greatly upon the nature and context of what I’m reading. Of course, if something is well written, on a subject I care very much about, and/or helpful to answering a question I’m curious about, I’m more likely to finish it, but I have a much easier time reading large blocks of text on paper than on a computer. I really can’t imagine ever reading a full book on my laptop, nor do I think I would remember as much of it if I did so. Even lengthy articles make me antsy when I try to read them online (heck, I didn't even finish the one quoted above!).

As much as I love the idea of carrying my library around in my computer, I'm beginning to think it would only be helpful as a supplement to "the real thing," never as its replacement.