Moby Dick Summer

Chapters sent Monday and Wednesday. Recaps/bonus material sent Friday.

Have you ever wanted to read Moby-Dick; or, The Whale by Herman Melville? What’s stopping you? Maybe it’s that classic book you’ve always wanted to read, but never gotten around to. Or perhaps you’re daunted by its length (which varies by edition, but most clock in over ~500 pages). Possibly you even started the book, dug the Ishmael and Queequeg buddy comedy beginning, but gave up somewhere in the middle, when Melville stopped the action to really go off on the color white, or, uh, wax poetic about sperm whale oil.

Wherever you’re at, you are invited to participate in Moby Dick Summer—Moby-Dick serialized as a newsletter and a challenge to read it from Memorial Day to Labor Day. It’s a compressed enough period of time to keep momentum, but long enough to read slowly or miss a few weeks if life gets in the way.

Moby-Dick is 135 chapters (plus the Etymology, Extracts, and Epilogue), but some chapters are very short, the equivalent of a page. Subscribe to be emailed a few chapters of the book every Monday and Wednesday. And on Fridays, you’ll receive either a television style recap of the week’s readings, or surprise bonus material (interviews with Moby-Dick mega-fans and scholars, guest essays, or other fun ephemera). The first chapters will arrive in your inbox on Memorial Day (5/30/22) and the last will drop Labor Day (9/5/22).

Y’all ready? Let’s have a Moby Dick Summer.