“I’m not a machine. I feel and believe. I have opinions. Some of them are interesting. I could, if you’d let me, talk and talk. Let’s talk about anything.”

INFINITE JEST – page 282

It turns out that I’m not the only one who’s decided to start reading this summer. In a bizarre coincidence, several thousand people worldwide have decided to do the very same thing, finally proving that I am a massively influential human being. For the task in hand, I have managed to print off some spiffy new book-marks. It’s been a pleasure to partake in such an event, and it’s encouraging to share the experience with so many diverse people.

Such distractions aside, the book is a joy, and defies that usual melancholy that comes with enjoying a book of normal size, only to feel it ended just as you were enjoying it. As it stands, I’m very nearly 300 pages in, and it seems like I’ve only just started. This isn’t just down to the size of the book (I’m about 30% through) but the writing, which is sooopoib.

As if the happenstance of starting this book at the same time as everyone at Infinite Summer wasn’t enough to get me all moist like a pubescent girl, it was also fun to be reading during Wimbledon, what with IJ’s tennis thread. I found it hard not to transpose events in the book with those on my TV screen, and I imagined Andy Murray winding down after his semi-final loss to Andy Roddick by discretely puffing away on a one-hitter, and Roger Federer compulsively squeezing a tennis ball while talking to Nike suits about his awesome jacket, which my girlfriend considers “inappropriate”.