Player Piano by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

I've been a big Vonnegut fan ever since I read Slaughterhouse Five when I was about 16. I love his cynicism, and his sometimes downright hilarity. I've read most of his books and I plan on reading the rest of them at some point. I recently picked up Player Piano at a used book store. I knew it was Vonnegut's first novel thanks to Wikipedia but I didn't know anything else about it. I've had more time for reading recently so I decided to give it a shot.
It's a hell of a first novel.
Kurt tells us the story of a near-future America where almost everything in life is automated and almost all work is done by machines. The protagonist Dr. Paul Proteus is an engineer who works in the public works in Illium, New York as an engineer. In this society the engineers are the richest and most well thought of people since their work has given way to the new easy way of life.
There are those that would disagree, however, as Paul realizes every time he has to cross to "that side" of the bridge to the town where all the regular people live, many of which are out of a job thanks to the new mechanized way of life. Regular people are very looked down upon because the machines have determined with a test that children take upon exiting high school that they are not smart enough to become scientists or engineers, but instead are destined for life in the military (though there hasn't been a war for a very long time) or the public works corps, doing jobs such as road work and building projects.
The title of the book comes from one of Paul's visits to the poor side of town when he stops into a bar to pick up a bottle of whiskey for a friend. One of the bar patrons looks at the player piano playing away in the bar and drunkenly bemuses that even the player piano at one time put someone out of a job. Paul begins to have different feelings about the convenient, machine-led life he has helped create and gradually questions more and more aspects of the system and the way things are. He eventually is given the opportunity to become the poster child for the anti machine movement.
I'm not going to give away any more of the story, and there is a lot more to this book. The way it is written, packed with Vonnegut's signature style of dark humor, I would not have thought that this was his first novel.
All in all this book is definitely worth a read and would be enjoyed by a wide audience. I can't help but be excited to read the rest of Vonnegut's books and also can't help but be sad to know there will come a time when there are no more of his books that I haven't read.