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Coming Soon: Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library

   August 19th, 2010 Brian Herzog

Kurt Vonnegut Memorial LibraryKurt Vonnegut is one of my favorite authors, and I first read many of his books at a time when my personality and outlook on life were still impressionable as wet cement. His writing style, and both of us being from the Midwest, played a large part in my love of reading and writing.

So I'm happy to hear that the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library is opening in his home town of Indianapolis in this Fall.

It is fitting to call it a library, because he was certainly a prolific writer and a great supporter of libraries. However, the description on the website makes it sound more like a museum, community center and art gallery. It's collection will house many of his letters and works and so will be a research center, and they also plan to publish a literary magazine and sponsor writers workshops.

They have a newsletter and are on Facebook, and all of it makes me really look forward to visiting.

via LISNews



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Kurt Vonnegut Dies

   April 12th, 2007 Brian Herzog

Bill's CageI was saddened to learn today that Kurt Vonnegut has died.

He has been one of my favorite writers since I was old enough to have a favorite writer. Very rightly, Indianapolis had declared 2007 as the Year of Vonnegut, and I consider myself lucky to have lived in his time.

One of my favorite quotes is something I read in one of his books, but is not something he wrote. In the preface to one of his novels, he told of a letter he received from a young boy. The boy talked about how he noticed that all of Vonnegut's stories seemed to distill down to a single six-word theme: "love may fail, but courtesy prevails." If I live my life by any motto, that comes close, and Vonnegut played a large part in shaping it.

4/12/07, kurt vonnegut, vonnegut



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The Year of Vonnegut

   January 9th, 2007 Brian Herzog

The Year of Vonnegut in Indianapolis I was born in 1974, the Year of the Tiger. Kids lucky enough to be born in 2007 get to be born in The Year of Vonnegut - at least, if they're from Indianapolis, IN.

A friend of mine there told me a while ago that Indianapolis was honoring one of my favorite authors, Kurt Vonnegut, in this way (and, knowing me well, she also reminded me again last week - thanks, Lisa).

Indianapolis' local free paper, NUVO, is covering the year's events, sponsored in part by them, the Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library, and many other community groups.

Not only do I think this is a heck of way for a city to celebrate a native son, but it's great that the local library and cultural newspaper are so involved. Talk about encouraging reading through positive publicity. However, I can't help note the similarity to the plot of Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions.

Here are some more Vonnegut resources on the internet:

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Indiana, Indianapolis, Indianapolis-Marion County Public Library, Kurt Vonnegut, NUVO, the year of vonnegut, Vonnegut, year of vonnegut



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