We here at the I.S.anctuary are happy to serve as the Infinite Summer hub. But we also know that the most interesting and insightful analysis will come from Out There, as participants provide updates on their own sites. Thus, for the duration of the event, we’ll be cheerfully providing links to any commentary that comes to our attention.
For now, here are some of the people and organizations who have publicly declared themselves “in”.
Alison Flood of The Guardian’s “Book Blog” says that Infinite Jest “has been on my reading pile for ages … This is exactly the sort of prompt I need.”
Sean of Discover Magazine’s “Cosmic Variance” blog wrote “I once read through Gravity’s Rainbow with a real-world reading group, and it added a lot to the experience … I’m going to give [Infinite Summer] a shot.”
Ezra Klein, a blogger for The Washington Post (on economic and domestic policy, no less), titled his declaration of intent A Supposedly Fun Thing I Plan to Do This Summer. Margaret Lyons did likewise over at Entertainment Weekly in her post To “Infinite” … and beyond!. (We’re pleased as punch for the press, though mildly irked that we didn’t think of those titles first.)
Two thousand people have joined the Facebook group. (Actually we’re three shy, at 1997 members. Don’t make us beg.) On Twitter, about a zillion tweets a day go by containing the hashtag #infsum.
Lauren created a LiveJournal Community. Sarah created a Infinite Summer Shelfari group. Ellen created a page on goodreads.
Deborah started a discussion on Ravelry, a website devoted to knit and crochet. “You have to be a member to participate,” she notes. “But we’d love to see you there!”
Over in the Twin Cities, a local group that enjoys both reading lit and getting lit is joining the fun. See the discussion over at Books and Bars.
And many of you are here today after Colin Meloy of The Decemberists publicized the event. “I’m going for it,” he wrote. “Who’s with me?”
Here’s a random sampling of additional participants:
- C. K. Sample of Sample the Web (“I’ll probably even talk at length about the book and the process of reading it on my literature podcast, Let’s Talk Lit!“).
- Eric of The Puget News.
- Nichole and Mike of esmon dot com.
- Karen of verbatim.
- Jason of The Strake (although he writes, “the reading starts on June 21st and the idea is to read 7 pages per day,” so he may be thinking of our sister event, “Infinite Lustrum”).
- Kirsten of Now or Never.
- Mary-Lynn of Rockin’ Poncho.
- Greg of Greg Brown.
- Joni of Boxing Octopus.
- Miriam will be blogging about Infinite Summer in Italian. Javier with be doing so in Spanish.
- Kat of Kat with a K.
- Jen of Corrodentia Weekly.
If you intend to join in the festivities, feel free to mention your site in the comments.
Comments
82 responses to “The Community”
Hi! I’m a librarian and I work in a tiny little library near Milan, Italy.
I’ll promote the Infinite Summer to my readers and of course I’ll join the challenge too 🙂
http://tinyurl.com/od2wrq
I wasn’t sure at first, but when I managed to snag a copy on BookMooch, I took it as a sign. IJ is one of the books on my list for the Fill-in-the-Gaps project, so I’ll be blogging about it both there and at my regular blog, Corrodentia Weekly.
Oh yeah, I must have been thinking about the proposed metric week changes – 10 day weeks / 75 pages per week = 7.5 pages per day.
Um… or something.
Either way, I’m looking forward to the book and the conversations. Thanks for putting this together guys!
I’m in! My sites are Kat with a K and NH Political Info.
I’ll join in and blog in Spanish about the experience.
I’m in. (Reading it for the second time.) “Infinite Lustrum”: very funny. I laughed, aloud, but couldn’t force myself to state that in acronym form.
Hi,
I’ve begun a discussion group on Ravelry.com, a knitting and crocheting site. You have to be a member to participate but we’d love to see you there!
Got my copy today! It looks a bit daunting, but it’s in a lovely paper bag from my local independent book shop and all wrapped up in cellophane. I’m almost tempted to leave it in there and get a second copy…
I’ll be blogging about it in Spanish too.
I am the admin of wallace-l, the David Foster Wallace listserv. We’ve been discussing Infinite Jest and DFW since 1996. Feel free to join our list or browse our archives for previous re-read threads.
https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/wallace-l
I am also the publisher of Elegant Complexity: A Study of David Foster Wallace’s Infinite Jest by Greg Carlisle (if you are looking for a print reader’s guide).
http://www.librarything.com/work/3931226
I’m in and since I didn’t find one already, I just created a Goodreads group for Infinite Summer.
I have had this book forever, and am so glad to be able to finally tackle it with such a great group of people.
I’m in and I’m excited! My sites are http://www.petuniatowngirl.com and http://www.theicicle.wordpress.com.
Another librarian reporting for duty. I was planning to post on my blog about it once we get a bit closer to start-date.
I’ve been waiting for just the right time to pick this up. And what better time than summer … while everybody else is reading their piddly “beach reads,” I’ll be carrying around Infinite Jest for two months. At the very least, I’m sure to have some pretty well-defined arm muscles by the end of it. At the most (and what I expect), I’ll have had a great reading experience. Can’t wait to crack it open!
I wonder, if I read Infinite Jest in the forest and don’t blog about it, will it still astound? Hmmmm.
Regardless, first bought/read it when it just came out in paperback (which I still have–no one’s ever asked to borrow it). Will be curious to see if I’m now more Don Gately than Hal Incandenza. Tip: a good chair, a good light, and two stiff bookmarks.
I’m so in…I’ve been looking for the perfect opportunity to read I.J. since I started lugging around the ARC in 1995! “Safety in numbers” is very motivating.
Oh man, I wish Elegant Complexity wasn’t out of print…
The book has been on my shelf, daring me to read it for all too many years. Now’s the time.
Everyone should probably be aware that the pages of IJ actually contain 1.5 times more words than any other book. So 75 pages is actually like…. what… 115 pages-ish?… in normal book-speak. And that’s not even counting the footnotes, with the pretty itty-bitty font…
I’ve actually read it three times already, but it’s been a while, so I’m in.
Definitely going to join Infinite Summer – it’ll be my 2nd go-round with IJ. I’ll be posting the occasional blurb on my book blog!
may I join? xo
okay, I’m in. I guess. Fuck. Really? Yes, okay. I’m in.
I’m in! I’ll be footnoting the hell out of my blog. Really, I’ve been meaning to learn how to html footnotes into my blog, and this is clearly the time.
Perfect timing for me. Meant to read it for so long now. And then the great site here and so many others reading and the great photo with “To Do” bookmark poking from the book – the photo I stole for my own blog. I’m so in. And even said so publicly here and at my bibliohome so I can’t back out (easily). Here -http://nonsuchbook.typepad.com/nonsuch_book/2009/06/the-summer-to-do-list-infinite-jest-proust-2666.html
Along with a few of my fellow editors at the Bennington College campus newspaper, I am thrilled to partake in this reading of one of the greatest books of our time. positively thrilled, Henry
http://deweyhammond.com/2009/05/david-foster-wallace-infinite-summer.html
Yezzir.
I along with Dewey have taken this on as a challenge. I’ve started just bc we have some books for a lil book club we got, but I joked, I might take a few days off work to focus on this.
I thought it was 75 pages a day. Shwooo. 75 pages a week is much more doable.
I’m in! I’ll probably be blogging about it at my site web-goddess.org, and I’ve also joined the Ravelry group somebody mentioned upstream.
I’m in – this is a great idea!
Summers are way too finite. This strikes me as a way to stretch it out a little.
Finishing IJ before I go off to college has been one of my goals for years and and I’m running out of time. This is the the kick in the pants I needed.
I’ll be on the beach with nothing to do for an entire week starting June 20. So, as long as I can find a wagon or something to haul the book along out onto the sand, I’m totally in.
I haven’t read a book that weighs more than a pound in a long time – maybe I’ll finally get myself some summer-suitable triceps while I’m at it.
Finding this website was a godsend (thank you Time magazine Pop Chart!). I ordered IJ from Amazon a couple of weeks ago and in one industrious day made it through the first 65 pages(plus footnotes). Never to pick the book up again except to move it out of site so I couldn’t see the dual bookmarks mocking me for not continuing onward. But I’ve now retrieved the tome and am ready to persevere!
Greetings! I just found the site listed in Time’s predictibility meter, and I’m excited. I started IJ on January 1st of this year, and am half way through. I’ve finished five non-fiction books since I started, but now that I’ve found other readers who are going to push me to finish I’m excited. I bought my friend at work a copy for his birthday, so maybe I can get him on board too!
GOOD LUCK!
Way cool! I’m in.
I’ve read IJ several times, so two pieces of advice for all you first-timers (and I envy you the experience):
1. Don’t worry about the first chapter. It’s the most boring, but just wade through it.
2. You must read the footnotes. And you can’t save them ’till the end. Some of them are silly; some of them are important; but you can’t tell which will be which until you turn to them. That’s just DFW messing with you.
Some of the footnotes have footnotes, and it’s best to read them as they come up, too.
One question: If people are going to read 75 pages/week (and that’s not nearly fast enough for me), does 75 pages mean 75 pages of text including all the footnotes for those 75 pages, or does it mean a grand total of 75 pages (x pages of text plus y pages of footnotes, x + y = 75)?
Philip,
I wanted to get a taste for DFW prior to reading IJ, so I read A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again. I read the text and all the footnotes as I went along. I found the footnotes to be a distraction, and have read them sparingly so far in IJ. Am I do the story a disservice by using a piecemeal method?
I am ready: the dictionary is close by, highlighters are stashed by the end table, my husband is eying me warily, and my dogs are trying to use the book as a stepping stool onto the couch.
I am reading this along with my four siblings and Mom for a summer reunion book talk. Thus far, two have bailed, two finished it and like a classic middle child, I am somewhere in between. I just keep saying, Press on, Beth! Glad I saw the plug in Time.
The footnotes (some of them, anyway) are central to the plot of IJ. You’ve gotta read them, and you can’t (or shouldn’t) wait to read them all at the end of the novel.
Not sure why anyone would want to skip the endnotes. That makes about as much sense as going to the Vatican and saying, “I just want to see 90% of the Sistine Chapel.”
My copy is winging it’s way towards me even as I speak. I’m in!
Will be blogging progress at Sarah’s Books
I’ve been planning since the beginning of the year on reading Infinite Jest this summer–and now I find out there is a whole community of people doing the same thing? This works out extremely well!
Can’t wait! I’ll be reading it with a few friends and maybe writing about it some as well. It’ll be my first Wallace. I did just finish Gravity’s Rainbow so my appetite for the postmodern epic has been whetted.
i’m in and very excited about this summer reading project!
I’m a lowly editorial assistant at David Foster Wallace’s publisher. I’ll be joining the fun.
I’m in! I figured since I’m going to Boston next year I might as well read a book that takes place in the area. I’m only 17, am I in way over my head?
check:
mightybeluga.blogspot.com