The Last Promontory

In 2026 my company, Oddly Specific Objects, sponsored the Open Hardware Summit in Berlin. As a result, we were invited to put one item in the OSHWA swag bag. While brainstorming ideas of what to make, ranging from bookmarks to notebooks, I sought advice from friends.

One colleague suggested: why not give everyone a book? Raid some used bookstores, find used books in the public domain, give everyone some open culture to read on the plane ride home. Then a few days later, on a subway ride to Manhattan, I told a different friend about this idea. His suggestion: “Why not make a book?” Pick some short stories in the public domain, and compile them into an anthology that’s relevant to the audience.

So I did it.

The cover of the book was hand-drawn by me in Affinity Photo (ok: tracing over some photos of the Manhattan skyline that I took for reference). All the non-public-domain text, including the introduction that I wrote for the anthology, were released under Creative Commons licenses.

In addition to the print run of 300 given to attendees, I also published the entire book at thelastpromontory.com, where you can read all of these short works. I suggest reading them in order.