Kurt Vonnegut

"A madcap genealogical adventure . . . Vonnegut is a postmodern Mark Twain."--The New York Times Book Review Gal pagos takes the reader back one million years, to A. D. 1986. A simple vacation cruise suddenly becomes an evolutionary journey. Thanks to an apocalypse, a small group of survivors stranded on the Gal pagos Islands are about to become the progenitors of a brave, new, and totally different human race. In this inimitable novel, America' s master satirist looks at our world and shows us all that is sadly, madly awry-and all that is worth saving. Praise for Gal pagos "The best Vonnegut novel yet "--John Irving "Beautiful . . . provocative, arresting reading."--USA Today "A satire in the classic tradition . . . a dark vision, a heartfelt warning."--The Detroit Free Press "Interesting, engaging, sad and yet very funny . . . Vonnegut is still in top form. If he has no prescription for alleviating the pain of the human condition, at least he is a first-rate diagnostician."--Susan Isaacs, Newsday "Dark . . . original and funny."--People "A triumph of style, originality and warped yet consistent logic . . . a condensation, an evolution of Vonnegut's entire career, including all the issues and questions he has pursued relentlessly for four decades."--The Philadelphia Inquirer "Wild details, wry humor, outrageous characters . . . Gal pagos is a comic lament, a sadly ironic vison."--St. Louis Post-Dispatch "A work of high comedy, sadness and imagination."--The Denver Post "Wacky wit and irreverent imagination . . . and the full range of technical innovations have made Vonnegut] America's preeminent experimental novelist."--The Minneapolis Star and Tribune

" Kurt Vonnegut] has never been more satirically on-target. . . . Nothing is spared."--People Jailbird takes us into a fractured and comic, pure Vonnegut world of high crimes and misdemeanors in government--and in the heart. This wry tale follows bumbling bureaucrat Walter F. Starbuck from Harvard to the Nixon White House to the penitentiary as Watergate's least known co-conspirator. But the humor turns dark when Vonnegut shines his spotlight on the cold hearts and calculated greed of the mighty, giving a razor-sharp edge to an unforgettable portrait of power and politics in our times. Praise for Jailbird " Vonnegut] is our strongest writer . . . the most stubbornly imaginative."--John Irving "A gem . . . a mature, imaginative novel--possibly the best he has written . . . Jailbird is a guided tour de force of America. Take it "--Playboy "A profoundly humane comedy . . . Jailbird definitely mounts up on angelic wings--in its speed, in its sparkle, and in its high-flying intent."--Chicago Tribune Book World "Joyously inventive . . . gleams with the loony magic Vonnegut alone can achieve."--Cosmopolitan "Vonnegut is our great apocalyptic writer, the closest thing we've had to a prophet since . . . Lenny Bruce."--Chicago Sun-Times "Vonnegut at his impressive best. . . . His imaginative leaps alone . . . are worth the price of admission. . . . His far-reaching metaphysical and cultural concerns . . . are ultimately serious and worth our contemplation."--The Washington Post

This collection of Vonnegut's short masterpieces share his audacious sense of humor and extraordinary range of creative vision. Accelerated Reader: Reading Level 5.7, 16 Points.

An old man recounts his past to a voluptuous widow, revealing man's compulsion to create and destroy what he loves.

" Vonnegut] at his wildest best."--The New York Times Book Review Eliot Rosewater--drunk, volunteer fireman, and President of the fabulously rich Rosewater Foundation--is about to attempt a noble experiment with human nature . . . with a little help from writer Kilgore Trout. God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is Kurt Vonnegut's funniest satire, an etched-in-acid portrayal of the greed, hypocrisy, and follies of the flesh we are all heir to. "A brilliantly funny satire on almost everything."--Conrad Aiken " Vonnegut was] our finest black humorist. . . . We laugh in self-defense."--The Atlantic Monthly

" Kurt Vonnegut's] best book . . . He dares not only ask the ultimate question about the meaning of life, but to answer it."--EsquireNominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read The Sirens of Titan is an outrageous romp through space, time, and morality. The richest, most depraved man on Earth, Malachi Constant, is offered a chance to take a space journey to distant worlds with a beautiful woman at his side. Of course there's a catch to the invitation-and a prophetic vision about the purpose of human life that only Vonnegut has the courage to tell. "Reading Vonnegut is addictive "--Commonweal

One of Vonnegut's most highly praised novels. Filled with humor and unforgettable characters, this apocalyptic story tells of Earth's ultimate end, and presents a vision of the future that is both darkly fantastic and funny, as Vonnegut weaves a satirical commentary on modern man and his madness.

It decides to wind the clock back a decade to 1991, making everyone in the world endure ten years of deja-vu and a total loss of free will â?? not to mention the torture of reliving every nanosecond of one of the tawdiest and most hollow decades.

From the author of Slaughterhouse 5. The human survivors of the nature cruise of the century, are quietly evolving into sleek, furry creatures with flippers and small brains. All other forms of humankind have ceased to exist, made redundant by their prized big brains.

From riffs on country music, George Bush, and his mother's midnight mania, to a bittersweet tribute to a dead friend, this book demonstrates why Kurt Vonnegut is equally well known as an essayist and commentator as he is a novelist. It resonates with Vonnegut's singular voice.

A special fiftieth anniversary edition of Kurt Vonnegut's masterpiece, "a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century" (Time), featuring a new introduction by Kevin Powers, author of the National Book Award finalist The Yellow Birds Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world's great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber's son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming "unstuck in time." An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut's writing--the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit--that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it. Authors as wide-ranging as Norman Mailer, John Irving, Michael Crichton, Tim O'Brien, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Strout, David Sedaris, Jennifer Egan, and J. K. Rowling have all found inspiration in Vonnegut's words. Jonathan Safran Foer has described Vonnegut as "the kind of writer who made people--young people especially--want to write." George Saunders has declared Vonnegut to be "the great, urgent, passionate American writer of our century, who offers us . . . a model of the kind of compassionate thinking that might yet save us from ourselves." More than fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut's portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era's uncertainties.

When Walter F. Starbuck, the least celebrated of the Watergate conspirators, is freed from jail after two years, his first 24 hours of freedom take shape with the unforeseen turns of fortune and moral innuendo of an urban fairytale. The author's other novels include "Slaughterhouse 5".

With the satirical eye of his science fiction author alter ego Kilgore Trout, the author of Slaughterhouse-Five delivers a classic of modern American literature. Eliot Rosewater, President of the fabulously rich Rosewater Foundation and volunteer firefighter, is tortured by an inheritance he doesn�t feel that he deserves.

In a frolic of cartoon and comic outbursts against rule and reason, a miraculous weaving of science fiction, memoir, parable, fairy tale and farce, Kurt Vonnegut attacks the whole spectrum of American society, releasing some of his best-loved literary creations on the scene.

â?? Black satire of the highest polishâ?? GuardianWhilst awaiting trial for war crimes in an Israeli prison, Howard W. Can a black or white verdict ever be reached in a world thatâ??s a gazillion shades of grey?â?? After Vonnegut, everything else seems a bit tameâ?? Spectator

'Although it is set in the near future, Hocus Pocus is the most topical, realistic Vonnegut novel to date, and shows the struggle of an artist a little impatient with allegory and more than a little impatient with his own country' - New York Times Book ReviewSome get all the luck â?? but not Eugene Debs Hartke.

Read Kurt Vonnegut's powerful masterpiece, which is as timely now as when it was first published.‘An extraordinary success. A book to read and reread. He is a true artist’ New York Times Book ReviewBilly Pilgrim – hapless barber's assistant, successful optometrist, alien abductee, senile widower and soldier – has become unstuck in time. Hiding in the basement of a slaughterhouse in Dresden, with the city and its inhabitants burning above him, he finds himself a survivor of one of the most deadly and destructive battles of the Second World War. But when, exactly? How did he get here? And how does he get out? Travel through time and space on the shoulders of Vonnegut himself. This is a book about war. Listen to what he has to say: it is of the utmost urgency.‘The great, urgent, passionate American writer of our century, who offers us a model of the kind of compassionate thinking that might yet save us from ourselves.’ George Saunders