Way back in 1971, before I was even born, and the use of the words "personal computer" would have branded the speaker a science fiction junkie,
Michael Hart started
Project Gutenberg, an effort to digitize the world's books. Although the project has since been superseded by more ambitious efforts (i.e.
Google Books), Project Gutenberg, with the efforts of tens of thousands of volunteers, keeps chugging along.Although lacking in the great search features offered by a service like Google Books or
Amazon Search Inside, Project Gutenberg has several excellent features (an extensive collection of free books for PDAs, for example) that guarantee it a place in my heart. One of the greatest parts of the project is their
RSS feed, which provides subscribers with nightly updates of additions to their catalog. I've been a subscriber for over a year and am always delighted by the book titles that arrive in my inbox each morning. A recent sampling included
Arthur Waite's Devil-Worship In France (1896), an omnibus of
Atlantic Monthlies from 1916, a sixteenth century grammar of the Japanese language compiled by Portuguese missionaries, and... what's this... a
Kurt Vonnegut story?The story, "
2 B R 0 2 B", first appeared in the sci-fi journal
Worlds of If in January 1962, placing it shortly after the release of his novel
Mother Night. Apparently, Vonnegut never renewed the copyright, and it wasn't included in any of his short story collections. The story itself is short and, although it's easy to see why Vonnegut never bothered to anthologize it, as a big fan of Vonnegut, it's a pleasant surprise.Enjoy!
See also: Kurt Vonnegut RIPAs Noted in the Comments: It turns out that "2 B R 0 2 B" was in fact published in
Bagombo Snuff Box.
My Birthday: F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Last Tycoon
When I graduated the first time: Margaret A. Salinger's Dream Catcher
Second Graduation: Difficult to tell because he quit recording the month.
I found it interesting to see what he read while I was fighting in Iraq. I read what ever I could get my hands on, which was usually a book a person found on their bookshelf– dusty, dogeared, and unwanted– and placed into an office or church care package. Most FOBs had a stack of these books for trade. I traveled around so I would take a book from one location and trade it at the next FOB. This helped a twenty to thirty book library rotate its inventory. Art and I both ended up reading the Da Vinci Code around the same time. (A soldier I knew received it for Christmas.) None of the other books were the same. (Note: Shackleton's Valiant Voyage a book I picked up at FOB Tiger and left at FOB Byers, is great. I didn't see it on Art's list, but I didn't look though all 40 years.)
Oh man, I suddenly feel really old, apparently he didn't know how to read when I was born! I also feel lazy and unorganized, not only have I not read that many books, I forgot to write them all down! He was reading "Childhood's End" when I graduated from HS, which would make me…:-)