Infinite Summer was an online book club-style project started by writer Matthew Baldwin. Sponsored by The Morning News

The Morning News (online magazine)

The Morning News is a U.S.-based daily online magazine founded in 1999 by Rosecrans Baldwin and Andrew Womack. It began as an email newsletter and in the fall of 2000 evolved into a news-oriented weblog with a New York focus...

, participants were challenged to read and complete David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace

David Foster Wallace was an American author of novels, essays, and short stories, and a professor at Pomona College in Claremont, California...

's novel Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest

Infinite Jest is a 1996 novel by David Foster Wallace. The lengthy and complex work takes place in a semi-parodic future version of North America, and touches on tennis, substance addiction and recovery programs, depression, child abuse, family relationships, advertising and popular entertainment,...

at a rate of about 75 pages a week from June 21 to September 22, 2009.

Baldwin and three other writers acted as "guides," providing commentary on the main Infinite Summer website. Participants in the project also contributed commentary over a variety of social networking services, including Facebook

Facebook

Facebook is a social networking service and website launched in February 2004, operated and privately owned by Facebook, Inc. , Facebook has more than 800 million active users. Users must register before using the site, after which they may create a personal profile, add other users as...

, Tumblr

Tumblr

Tumblr is a website and microblogging platform that allows users to post text, images, videos, links, quotes and audio to their tumblelog, a short-form blog. Users can follow other users, or choose to make their tumblelog private. The service emphasizes ease of use. The site ranks as the 10th...

, and Twitter

Twitter

Twitter is an online social networking and microblogging service that enables its users to send and read text-based posts of up to 140 characters, informally known as "tweets".Twitter was created in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey and launched that July...

, where related tweets were marked with #infsum.

Baldwin said in interviews that the project was prompted in part by Wallace's death in September 2008.

Notable participants in the project included Colin Meloy

Colin Meloy

Colin Patrick Henry Meloy is the lead singer and songwriter for the Portland, Oregon, folk-rock band The Decemberists. In addition to vocals, he performs with an acoustic guitar, 12-string acoustic guitar, electric guitar, bouzouki, harmonica, percussion and interpretive hand gestures.-Early life...

 of The Decemberists

The Decemberists

The Decemberists are an indie folk rock band from Portland, Oregon, United States, fronted by singer/songwriter Colin Meloy. The other members of the band are Chris Funk , Jenny Conlee , Nate Query , and John Moen .The band's...

 and Ezra Klein

Ezra Klein

Ezra Klein is a liberal American blogger and columnist for The Washington Post, columnist for Bloomberg, a columnist for Newsweek, and a contributor to MSNBC...

 of The Washington Post

The Washington Post

The Washington Post is Washington, D.C.'s largest newspaper and its oldest still-existing paper, founded in 1877. Located in the capital of the United States, The Post has a particular emphasis on national politics. D.C., Maryland, and Virginia editions are printed for daily circulation...

. Though he did not participate, John Hodgman

John Hodgman

John Kellogg Hodgman is an American author, actor, and humorist. In addition to his published written works, such as The Areas of My Expertise, More Information Than You Require, and That Is All, he is known for his personification of a PC in contrast to Justin Long's personification of a Mac in...

described the project as "a noble and crazy enterprise."