The London incarnation of the Institute for the Future of the Book, or if:book as it likes to be known, is hosting a virtual group read of Doris Lessing’s The Golden Notebook. Seven female critics and creative writers will read the novel, jot down notes in the virtual margins, and discuss it all in a group blog. Other readers will be able to read the novel online and weigh in via a public forum on the site.
I did a quick take on the project for the Chronicle’s Wired Campus blog. This bit from Bob Stein, if:book’s co-director, is what really caught my eye:
Fundamentally this is an experiment in how the web might be used as a space for collaborative close-reading. We don’t yet understand how to model a complex conversation in the web’s two-dimensional environment and we’re hoping this experiment will help us learn some of what we need to do to make this sort of collaboration as successful as possible.
