Colin Meloy has never read Infinite Jest.

I think I bought my copy of Infinite Jest in 1997. To be honest, I don’t know what inspired the purchase. Had I read A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again? Probably. I don’t know why I would’ve bought a book by an unknown author that weighed in somewhere north of 1000 pages. Regardless, it was so long ago that I don’t remember actually buying it. All I know is that it has sat in my book collection for 12 years, unread.

I've never finished it either. Lots of people haven't. It's big, and heavy, and hard-on-purpose. The excerpt above is from a guest post Meloy wrote on the blog Infinite Summer, an online book club devoted to reading David Foster Wallace's novel—in its entirety, and not just until the Quebec separatists show up, which is where I always get bored and give up:

Join endurance bibliophiles from around the world in reading Infinite Jest over the summer of 2009, June 21st to September 22nd. A thousand pages1 ÷ 92 days = 75 pages a week. No sweat.

That's absolutely doable. And I think I'm gonna do it, if only so as to no longer be subjected to the insufferable smugness of people who HAVE read it. Thanks to Blogtown reader April for the tip.