Reading for short attention spans

Want to catch up with some of the great works of the literary canon, but just don’t have the time? Springwise reports that a new website called DailyLit has just the thing for you – books delivered in bite-sized chunks via email and RSS.

DailyLit makes over 500 classic and contemporary works available, free of charge, along with a more limited selection of pay-per-read titles priced at around US$US5. Each book bite, which are designed to be able to read in five minutes, is sent by email or RSS on the days and times selected by the reader. You can even get them sent to your BlackBerry or PDA, the perfect thing for a bit of reading while sitting on the bus.

DailyLit co-founder Susan Danziger told Springwise that the idea came from reading book serialisations in newspapers. “We read books that we had always meant to read because each chapter became part of our daily routine of reading the newspaper. The only thing we do more consistently than read the paper is read email. And voila! We put together a first version and began reading the classics.”