In a Reading Slump? Try Reading in Installments.

Hey guys!

Back in university, we learned about how some of what we now know to be novels, like Oliver Twist, were actually parts of serials where only a part of the story would be printed and released to the public at a time.  Due to this, readers would have to wait in anticipation between each of the installments.

I was reminded of this yesterday when I was just browsing through Google Play and came across a free app called Serial Reader.  What this app does is break up a piece of classic literature into roughly 20 minutes of reading per day.  Of course, the more books you have going at once, the more reading time you would have per day.  The app also allows you to choose when you want the next installment to come in each day.  For example, I'm currently reading The Last Man by Mary Shelley and Dracula by none other than Bram Stoker himself and, right now, I have the app set to download the next installment of whatever I'm reading at 9:00AM every day.  If I want to download them earlier or later, I can just change the time it's been set to and bam!  It's done!

Of course, in the Victorian era, it wouldn't have been so simple.  Then, they had to wait for either weekly or even monthly installments to come in.  The reason they did this was mostly to bring the price of printing literature down since books were quite expensive back then.  So, we're pretty lucky now.

If you want to read beyond the installment you were given on the app because maybe you had more spare time that particular day, or maybe you're actually using this app for school and want to make highlights and notes on the text directly through the app, you would have to pay for Serial Reader Premium.  Just to clarify, this is in no way intended to be an advertisement for the app.  I was not sponsored by anyone to write this.  I just think that this is a very interesting and clever way to read and encourage people to read more classic literature.  I, in fact, did not pay for Serial Reader Premium, myself.  I am running entirely on the free version of the app and loving it so far.

Now, I'm not sure if this app was meant to make the classics more easily digestible or if it was to encourage more reading overall, even if it is just for 20 minutes per day for some, but all I can say is that I'm enjoying it.  It seems to be working for me as I have fallen into quite the reading slump and it seems to have me excited about reading again.  Something about only getting small doses of literature a day seems to be pulling me out of my rut.  I also wish that I knew about it earlier especially if it existed while I was still in university studying these books.  But the past is the past.  I own quite a number of classics now due to my studies and I can't really complain about that at all.

I hope those of you who decide to try this app out enjoy it.  Let me know what you think!

Until next time,
Dusk