Tuesday, April 17, 2007

Bits of Wharton


My friend Jen (another of my book peeps) is reading Hermione Lee's well-reviewed new biography of Edith Wharton, which she says is really good, and better still, she will lend me when she's finished. Thanks Jen!

So in preparation for Lee's book, I'm going to read The Age of Innocence. But I'm going to do it in a new way--via email. I'm thankful to Matt at A Variety of Words for a link to DailyLit, a service that provides bite-sized chunks of books delivered via email. Each portion can be read in about 5 minutes (I'll vouch for that--just finished my first bit of Wharton from this service). If I only read one emailed portion per day, I'll be done with The Age of Innocence in 124 days! But if I get antsy and want to read ahead, I can request the next portion any time. I'll let you know how it goes.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Glad you're testing it out. I'm interested to see how it goes for you. I was there earlier trying to decide on a book but couldn't. I'm going to have to do it sometime soon.

Gentle Reader said...

matt--thanks for the tip! You provided me with today's post! I read the first installment today, and it was great because it was such a small piece, but they cut it off at a good cliffhanger place in the narrative...it actually made me laugh that they had found such a good spot to end it. I'll let you know if I keep on reading or if I get stalled...

Anonymous said...

hi -- i haven't made that much progress as i got sidetracked by the post birthday world but will probably finish this weekend and will give you a report...

Gentle Reader said...

Jen--I'm enjoying Age of Innocence by email. It's weird reading it on the screen--especially something written so long ago--but I'm enjoying how easy it is to get a little chunk of reading done every day.
Let me know how you like the bio, but I didn't mean to hurry you!