A lot of my friends are finally starting to get rid of their college books, but I’m just getting around to reading some of mine.

A few weeks ago I decided to read “First Fiction,” an anthology of the first published short stories by over 40 great authors. I bought this book, which includes stories by Margaret Atwood, Truman Capote, Ernest Hemingway, Norman Mailer, Grace Paley, John Updike and many more, for a fiction writing class I took in college. As I delved into “First Fiction,” I wondered why it had taken me so long to sit down and read the stories in this terrific compilation. Why, I asked myself, had I ignored this book for so long? In hindsight, it seemed foolish. It was clear that I should have read this book years ago.

When it comes to books, I often have revelations of this sort. I recently thanked a friend for giving me Joseph Heller’s final novel, “A Portrait of the Artist as an Old Man,” which I read last winter and really enjoyed. My friend pointed out that she’d given me the Heller book at least six years ago, when I was raving about “Catch 22.” It was hard to believe that half a decade had passed since I acquired “A Portrait of an Artist as an Old Man,” but there it was. What exactly had I been waiting for? It was impossible to say.

But back to “First Fiction.” “First Fiction” is a special collection, and I recommend it to anyone who loves short stories, or is serious about contemporary literature, or simply curious about how a favorite author got his or her start. I know someone who is a huge Kurt Vonnegut fan, and even received a postcard from him, years ago, in response to a letter she sent him inquiring about when his next book would be finished. This person had never read Vonnegut’s first short story, “Report on the Barnhouse Effect,” which is included in “First Fiction.” Naturally, I loaned her the book.

The brief intro to “Report on the Barnhouse Effect” notes that Vonnegut started writing while working in public relations right here in Schenectady, at General Electric; in an interview with Time magazine he said, “I started to write because I hated that job so much.” (Vonnegut’s GE stint also provided the inspiration for his first novel, “Player Piano,” which I acquired in high school and finally read last year, after Vonnegut died.). General Electric has been credited with many achievements, but few people are aware that the company inadvertently nurtured one of our most creative literary talents. Thank you, GE!

Thanks to “First Fiction” I now have a lengthy list of authors I need to read more of, starting with Alice Munro, Charles Bukowski and John Cheever, whose story about getting expelled from an elite prep school made me laugh out loud. I’m thinking I might need to make a trip to “Dove and Hudson,” the great little bookstore in Albany that’s located a few blocks from my apartment, to acquire some more books. They may sit on the shelf for two, five or even ten years, but eventually I’ll get around to reading them, because I always do.

NUMBER 235 ON THE LIST OF THINGS I DON’T CARE ABOUT: The NBA Most Valuable Player race. Seriously. Does anybody really care about this? I don’t think so. And yet you can’t turn on ESPN or glance at the ESPN website or look at Yahoo NBA without reading or hearing breathless commentary about whether it is finally Kobe’s year, or whether LeBron should receive credit for making the Cavaliers competitive, or whether any player is more valuable to his team than Chris Paul of the New Orleans Hornets. My vote, if I had one, would go to Kevin Garnett of the Boston Celtics, but the hype is growing increasingly tedious, and it would be fine with me if they canceled the contest altogether. I cheered Tom Brady of the New England Patriots last season when he won his first MVP award, but you know what? I would gladly have traded that award and the records he and Randy Moss broke this year for a victory in the Super Bowl. I would have enjoyed seeing Red Sox pitcher Josh Beckett win a Cy Young last year, but I’d rather have the World Series, thank you. So give the NBA MVP to Kobe or Chris Paul or LeBron. It doesn’t matter. Only the championship does.

I’ve been thinking about how to incorporate responses to comments in this blog, and I’ve decided that if I have anything to say I’ll post it in the blog on Thursday, as sort of an addendum to my main entry. Having a conversation with readers is somewhat new to me, and I may change my approach, particularly if the comments increase, but this is how it will work for now.

One reader wondered if DeVotchKa, the band I mentioned on Monday, sounds anything like the Gogol Bordello. I don’t own any CDs by the Gogol Bordello, so I’m not as knowledgeable about their sound, but I did see them in concert when they played Revolution Hall in Troy a few years ago. They share some of DeVotchKa’s Eastern European-gyspy punk influences, but they were much louder and crazier than DeVotchKa. Like, I thought lead singer Eugene Hutz was going to reach out into the audience and rip someone’s head off. He was one of the most insane lead singers I’ve ever seen.

One reader suggested Roger Ebert is a flunky of a film critic, or some such thing, and of course I take exception to that. Ebert is much more than the “two thumbs up” guy from his movie reviewing show; a visit to his Web site will reveal archived reviews going back almost 40 years, lengthy essays on influential movies such as the “Battleship Potemkin” and “Citizen Kane,” as well as a new feature on Tuesdays, where he recommends an overlooked or forgotten movie on DVD. (Last week he recommended the Charlton Heston movie “Will Penny,” which I had never seen or heard of.) Few critics have done more to champion small and independent movies, or exude a love of the movies, that Roger Ebert. (The New Yorker guys are good, but sometimes I think they hate the movies.) A.O. Scott, the film critic at the New York Times, captured a lot of my feelings about Ebert in an charming essay that ran in the paper last weekend.