Happy Birthday!

November 11

"It's the birthday of Kurt Vonnegut Jr., born in Indianapolis, Indiana (1922). He joined the Army, and in December of 1944, he was captured by the Germans during the Battle of the Bulge. He was imprisoned in a slaughterhouse in Dresden. On the night of February 13, 1945, British and American bombers attacked Dresden, igniting a firestorm that killed almost all the city's inhabitants in two hours. Vonnegut and his fellow prisoners only survived because they slept in a meat locker three stories below the ground. In 1967, he published Slaughterhouse-Five (1969). "

From The Writer's Almanac

I was told early on that you would always remember the person who turned you on to Vonnegut (cf. "pulled your coat to", "let one in on") And I do. I think. It was one of two people, which narrows it down without actually having to single out one person (and give credit to same). But more than that I remember the writing. I felt like I was being spoken to directly rather than reading words off a page. He truly revolutionized my love of reading and my notion that literature could speak to me as easily as, say, Zap comics could.

Read him!