Moby Dick Readalong

Call me Brona!

Yes, I know, I've been promising this post for quite some time now. 

I really want to tackle Moby Dick with a group of friends as I feel that this particular book could be a challenge to get through on my own. But my life is still in a very hectic stage and I keep pushing it back. 

However, I know from other recent readalongs, is that if I just commit to it, I will somehow make the time to fit it into my life.

So, this is it!

Thank you all for sticking by me and for encouraging me quietly from the sidelines to get my act together.

My plan is to read a chapter of the book then listen to the matching podcast episode from the Moby Dick Big Read.

Initially I had thought to do a chapter a week, but quickly realised that with 136 chapters it would take way too long. Trying to fit Moby Dick into just one month felt too ambitious as well. A chapter a day is too much (for me right now) so I will simply set a start date and end date with the idea of reading and listening to 3-4 chapters a week.

The 1st August 2019 is Melville's 200th birthday, so that feels like an auspicious start date.

He started writing Moby Dick in February 1850, so I thought that would make a good finish line for us, 170 years later.

So, the 1st August 2019 - 29th February 2020 - that's 30 weeks of Moby Dick with 4 and half chapters a week to read and listen to. I should be able to do that (& still read other stuff as well). What about you?

I will put up a monthly post to see how everyone is going and provide encouragement. I will attempt to tweet quotes from each chapter and share images of my copy of Moby Dick in the wild.

For further inspiration, I plan to read Nathaniel Philbrick's Why Read Moby-Dick? before the 1st August and will share any insights with you.

If you're keen to join in, let me know below and please share my button on all the social media platforms you like to use.

I played around with a few hashtag possibilities, but my ideas became rude, crude and undesirable very quickly!! So I have decided to keep it simple #MobyDickReadalong.