Many have lamented¹ the lost art of reading in our social-media-driven, content-hungry world, but few have actually tried to do anything about it.

在社交媒体发达、追求新鲜内容的当今世界，很多人为阅读艺术的日渐式微而感到惋惜，但很少有人真正尝试为此做出什么。

But whether or not you think people aren't reading long-form material as much as they used to, you can probably still get excited about free reading material. In Grenoble, France, a city known as the capital of the French Alps, a publishing start-up called Short Édition has installed eight free story-dispensing vending² machines in some of its most popular public spaces.

不过，不管你是不是认为人们已经不再像以前那样喜欢阅读长篇读物了，你可能还是会为免费读物而感到兴奋的。在法国阿尔卑斯山区的首府城市格勒诺布尔市（Grenoble），一家名为Short Édition的出版业初创公司在该市人流最密集的几处公共场所安置了8台免费短篇小说自动售货机。

The strange, screen-less contraptions are the brainchild of Christophe Sibieude (the co-founder and head of Short Édition) and Grenoble's mayor, Éric Piolle. The pair hope that commuters and bystanders will make use of these stories to expand and enrich³ their minds while waiting around, rather than tapping their way aimlessly through Facebook or Twitter. Stories are dispensed⁴ according to how much time you've got to spend reading (one-, three-, and five-minute options are available), and the stories are printed out on long receipt-like paper.

这些连屏幕都没有的奇怪装置是Short Édition公司的联合创始人和负责人克里斯托夫·西比约德（Christophe Sibieude）和格勒诺布尔市长埃里克·皮奥勒（Éric Piolle）构想出来的。两人希望上班族和路人在等待的时候能阅读这些故事，开阔眼界、充实思想，而不是一味地刷Facebook和Twitter。这种短篇小说ATM机吐出的小说长度取决于你有多长的时间可以用来阅读（有一分钟、三分钟和五分钟可选）。这些故事是用类似收据小票的长纸条打印的。

"The idea came to us in front of a vending machine containing chocolate bars and drinks," Sibieude told AFP. "We said to ourselves that we could do the same thing with good quality popular literature to occupy these little uNPRoductive moments."

西比约德告诉法新社的记者：“站在一个巧克力棒和饮料自动售货机前时，我们想出了这一创意。我们告诉自己，我们同样可以做高质量的大众文学读物ATM机，来打发这些零碎的闲暇时光”。