Teleread Offers Kurt Vonnegut a Fond Goodbye
April 12, 2007
And includes a pointer to free downloads of some Vonnegut classics
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., a sci-fi writer and satirist who wrote about heroics, vanities and greater sins, inspiring comparisons with Mark Twain, died yesterday at 84 with a full head of hair. You can read a Google News roundup and his New York Times obit along with a link-rich Wikipedia item.Via Wowio, you can download free ad-supported copies of [a number of Vonnegut books].
I played around with Wowio, downloading Slaughter-House Five. Really, it is not much to write about—PDF files with ads stuffed in every so many pages. The ads are awkwardly placed—they look like full-page magazine ads—and in the default settings of the reader they are just disembodied page layouts. In Slaughter-House Five, it looked to me like the ads disrupted Vonnegut’s intended pagination. In at least one place, an ad separates an illustration from Vonnegut’s description. The effect is jarring, but if I were a starving college student again, I probably would put up with it in exchange for a free book.
Many, many publishing blogs weighed in on Vonnegut today, and for good reason. He was an oversized talent, and many people of my age and a little older read every Vonnegut book, often more than once. He will be missed.
Posted by Bill Trippe at April 12, 2007 4:26 PM
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