What’s New at Open Book Systems

The “content imperative”—the need for ideas and information to find and serve readers in whatever medium possible—came home today, when Joseph E. Garland formally asked us to publish his Unknown Soldiers, a collective memoir of infantrymen whose World War II “battle books” include Sicily, Salerno, and four straight months spent on the open, flat Anzio Beachhead, being shot at and bombed ceaselessly and around the clock. The book ends after the 45th Thunderbirds liberate the Dachau concentration camp.

Joe wants the book published now, not only to honor his fellow authors (four remain from the original 30 he interviewed), but in time to make a difference to a country again engaged in war. The 87 hours of conversations he taped with his platoon mates will contribute to the online version. It will appear under OBS’s Protean Press imprint.