Announcements

Bubblegum Timeline

Daryl L. L. Houston21 Comments

My copy of Bubblegum arrived today, and I’ve had a chance to flip through it and come up with a timeline for reading it. I figure that about 100 pages a week should be doable, and the book breaks down fairly neatly into sections of about that length. Here’s what I propose:

Date Read Through Page
May 11 81
May 18 176
May 25 282
June 1 377
June 8 476
June 15 583
June 22 660
June 29 767

That means it’s fair game to write or comment about the first 81 pages on May 11, the first 176 on May 18, and so on. I’m not going to worry too much about spoilers, but I suppose it’d be a kindness to readers sticking close to this pace to avoid any huge or far-future spoilers as we write about and discuss the book.

If you’re planning to write posts along with me and have done so here in the past, your account should still let you do so. If you’ve not written here in the past and would like to, send me a note at infinitezombies at gmail or comment here and I’ll be in touch. Anyone of course is welcome — indeed encouraged — to comment. The more ideas we toss around in the comments, the more I think we’ll get out of the book.

The schedule’s not set in stone, so if you’re a would-be writer and this simply won’t work for you, let me know. I’m open to making some adjustments over the next few days. Otherwise, I’m looking forward to kicking things off in earnest the week of May 11.

IS gives IZ a shoutout

Scott PorchLeave a comment

I looked at the hit traffic for Infinite Zombies this morning and noticed a sharp uptick coming from the mother ship.  Yesterday’s Infinite Summer roundup links us and says:

At Infinite Zombies, five writers intend to chronicle their reading of the book in a format they describe as “part book club, part Fight Club.”

Thanks for the mention, IS!  (Also, Infinite Zombies now has seven bloggers.)

If you’re visiting us for the first time and notice there’s not much talk about IJ yet, come back often.  We’ll be following the same spoiler rules that IS outlined here, so there won’t be any book-specific posts until next Friday, June 26, when IS lifts the cover off the first 63 pages of IJ.  In the mean time, several of our bloggers will be writing about their previous DFW reading experiences and other topics.

Welcome to the summer of Infinite Zombies

Scott PorchLeave a comment

I posted a few notes over the past several days on the Infinite Summer official page and Facebook page seeking writers for a group blog about the project and got a solid response.  Four writers are listed already on the About page, and three more are confirmed.  It looks like we’re going to have an interesting group with a variety of academic, reading, writing and professional backgrounds, and I’m looking forward to diving into the fray.

Here’s how the site will work:

  • Over the next week and a half, the Infinite Zombies bloggers will introduce themselves and get acquainted with each other and the readers.  We’ll discuss books, authors, what we’re doing this summer, and why each of us decided to read and blog our experiences reading Infinite Jest this summer.
  • On Friday, June 26, the group will begin discussing the first 63 pages of Infinite Jest.
  • Each week through mid-September, the discussion will progress through the book according to the schedule provided by Infinite Summer.

That’s it.

I’m hoping for a lively, spirited discussion about Infinite Jest, the themes of the book, the experience of reading it, the experience of group reading it, and observations about each other’s observations about Infinite Jest, the themes of the book, the experience of reading it, etc.  Keep your fingers crossed that we all get to the end of the book!

Your comments and suggestions are welcome.  If you’re reading along, give us a shout in the comments.

Happy reading!