Indiespensable #21 Arrived!

I really do enjoy waiting for my surprise packages from Powell's every 6 weeks. This time around the featured title is the hefty Freedom, by Jonathan Franzen. The surprise gift turned out to be a bag of Stumptown coffee beans, which is a terrific Portland present! I am definitely a fan of both their beans and baristas, which is saying a lot. I am very picky about my coffee.

The slipcase is quite fetching this time around, and I've heard very, very good things about this book so I am looking forward to digging into it soon.

Project 2010: Reading Vonnegut's Full Body of Work

With ample time on my hands this fall and having found Armageddon In Retrospect such an unexpectedly enjoyable read, I have decided to read my way through Kurt Vonnegut's writings one by one. Being unemployed is a mostly unpleasant and unsettling experience, but the financial uncertainty does carry some fringe benefits - most notably all the extra free time and the natural impulse towards introspection that occurs in the course of major life changes. This makes it the perfect time to tackle some philosophical literature that I've overlooked up until this point.

I'll be progressing roughly in this order and ticking off the titles as I finish them:

• Armageddon in Retrospect
• Slaughterhouse Five
• Mother Night
• Galapagos
• Cat's Cradle
• Breakfast of Champions
• The Sirens of Titan
• Welcome to the Monkey House
• Jailbird
• God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
• Deadeye Dick
• Hocus Pocus
• Timequake
• Bluebeard
• Look at the Birdie
• Canary in a Cathouse
• Bagombo Snuff Box
• Palm Sunday
• A Man Without a Country
• Fates Worse than Death: an Autobiographical Collage
• While Mortals Sleep