Maybe you spend your public commute in the morning chewing through e-mail spam so you don’t have to deal with it once you’re in the office. Maybe you spend it playing some game. Maybe you’re getting a head-start on the day’s news. But maybe every once in awhile you glance sidelong to some other person on the bus, and they’re reading a book. And you can’t help but think to yourself “Damn, I should be reading something. It’s the clever, cultured thing to do.” Of course, that’s what I think – being an English major loads you down with shame the nanosecond you aren’t reading something. Sure, Bookworm can stem the perverse dual desires of wordiness and BlackBerry-fiddling, but when it comes down to getting your literature fix, nothing beats a book. Well, except maybe a book on a BlackBerry.
DailyLit has, with a fine butcher’s skill, chopped up some of the greatest public domain pieces of literature, and are offering daily doses to your e-mail while they’re testing the service. Sure, it might take a hell of a lot longer to get through a book, but five minutes of reading per day is way better than no minutes, as anyone who’s played Brain Age will tell you. Eventually it will become a pay service, so you might want to check this out before then.
