Kurt Vonnegut

Since its original publication in 1968, "Welcome to the Monkey House" has been one of Kurt Vonnegut's most beloved works. This special edition celebrates a true master of the short-story form by including multiple variant drafts of what would eventually be the title story. In a fascinating accompanying essay, "Building the Monkey House: At Kurt Vonnegut's Writing Table,"""noted Vonnegut scholar Gregory D. Sumner walks readers through Vonnegut's process as the author struggles--false start after false start--to hit upon what would be one of his greatest stories. The result is the rare chance to watch a great writer hone his craft in real time. Praise for Kurt Vonnegut "Kurt Vonnegut is, in my view, the great, urgent passionate American writer of our century."--George Saunders "Vonnegut's fiction itches to seize the human truth by its large handles."--John Updike

This is the second volume of Vonnegutâ??s autobiographical writings â?? a collage of his own life story, snipped up and stuck down alongside his views on everything from suicidal depression to the future of the planet and Andrew Lloyd Webber. this rare glimpse of Vonnegut's soul is a dagger to the heart of Western complacency.

Available to readers for the first time, Sucker’s Portfolio showcases a collection of seven never before published works from Kurt Vonnegut, one of the greatest writers of the 20th century. Short, sardonic, and dark, these six brief fiction stories and one non-fiction piece are consummate Vonnegut with piercing satire and an eye for life’s obscene inanity. Also available for the first time is an unfinished science-fiction short story, included in the appendix. These stories trace trivial human lives and mundane desires, which is precisely where Vonnegut’s inimitable perspective as a humanist shines, illuminating his alternating hopeful and dismal outlook, although undoubtedly focusing on the latter. Here as in his greatest novels, Vonnegut’s writing takes us to the darkest corners of the human soul and with wit and humor, manages to remind us of our potential to be something greater. This book was initially released in episodes as a Kindle Serial. All episodes are now available for immediate download as a complete book.

2 B R 0 2 B by Kurt Vonnegut 2BR02B is a science fiction short story by Kurt Vonnegut, originally published in the pulp digest magazine Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1962. The title is pronounced "2 B R naught 2 B" and refers to the telephone number one dials to schedule an assisted suicide with the Federal Bureau of Termination. The setting is a society in which aging has been cured, individuals have indefinite lifespans, and population control is used to limit the population of the United States to forty million. This is maintained through a combination of infanticide and government-assisted suicide - in short, in order for someone to be born, someone must first volunteer to die. As a result, births are few and far between, and deaths occur primarily by accident. (source: Wikipedia) We are delighted to publish this classic book as part of our extensive Classic Library collection. Many of the books in our collection have been out of print for decades, and therefore have not been accessible to the general public. The aim of our publishing program is to facilitate rapid access to this vast reservoir of literature, and our view is that this is a significant literary work, which deserves to be brought back into print after many decades. The contents of the vast majority of titles in the Classic Library have been scanned from the original works. To ensure a high quality product, each title has been meticulously hand curated by our staff. Our philosophy has been guided by a desire to provide the reader with a book that is as close as possible to ownership of the original work. We hope that you will enjoy this wonderful classic work, and that for you it becomes an enriching experience.

2BR02B is a science fiction short story by Kurt Vonnegut, originally published in the digest magazine Worlds of If Science Fiction, January 1962, and collected in Vonnegut's Bagombo Snuff Box (1999). The title is pronounced "2 B R naught 2 B", referencing the famous phrase "to be, or not to be" from William Shakespeare's Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. In this story, the title refers to the telephone number one dials to schedule an assisted suicide with the Federal Bureau of Termination. Vonnegut's 1965 novel God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater describes a story by this name, attributing it to his recurring character Kilgore Trout, although the plot summary given is closer in nature to the eponymous tale from the short-story collection Welcome to the Monkey House. -wikipedia

NATIONAL BESTSELLER - Foreword by Dave Eggers These previously unpublished, beautifully rendered works of fiction are a testament to Kurt Vonnegut's unique blend of observation and imagination. Here are stories of men and machines, art and artifice, and how ideals of fortune, fame, and love take curious twists in ordinary lives. An ambitious builder of roads fritters away his free time with miniature trains--until the women in his life crash his fantasy land. Trapped in a stenography pool, a young dreamer receives a call from a robber on the run, who presents her with a strange proposition. A crusty newspaperman is forced onto a committee to judge Christmas displays--a job that leads him to a suspiciously ostentatious ex-con and then a miracle. Featuring a Foreword by Dave Eggers, While Mortals Sleep is a poignant reflection of our world as it is and as it could be. Includes the following stories: "Jenny" "The Epizootic" "Hundred-Dollar Kisses" "Guardian of the Person" "With His Hand on the Throttle" "Girl Pool" "Ruth" "While Mortals Sleep" "Out, Brief Candle" "Tango" "Bomar" "The Man Without No Kiddleys" "Mr. Z" "$10,000 a Year, Easy" "Money Talks" "The Humbugs" Praise for While Mortals Sleep "Immensely readable and thoroughly entertaining."--The Washington Post "Taut, concise . . . The stories set themselves up with neat swiftness, proceed at a clip, and shut down with equal speed, showing Vonnegut] honing his skills in structure and satire."--Los Angeles Times "A lovely reminder of the mischievous moral voice we lost when we lost Kurt Vonnegut."--San Francisco Chronicle "These stories were all good when they were written decades ago, but many strike me as great now. Never has the voice of Kurt Vonnegut, humanist and humorist, been more relevant."--The Seattle Times "There's something distinctly timeless about Vonnegut's vision."--Minneapolis Star-Tribune

In "Like Shaking Hands with God," two distinguished writers--separated by age, race, upbringing, and education, but sharing common goals and aspirations--talk about the place where the lives they lead meet the art they practice. That these two writers happened to be Kurt Vonnegut and Lee Stringer made it a historic celebration. The setting was a bookstore in New York City, the date Thursday, October 1, 1998. Before a crowd of several hundred, Vonnegut and Stinger took up the challenge of writing books that would make a difference and the concomitant challenge of living from day to day. As Vonnegut said afterward, "It was a magical evening." A book for anyone interested in why the simple act of writing things down can be more important than the amount of memory in our computers. Kurt Vonnegut (1922-2007) was among the few grandmasters of twentieth-century American letters, one without whom the very term American literature would mean much less than it does now. Vonnegut's other books from Seven Stories Press include "God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian" and the national hardcover and paperback bestseller "A Man Without a Country." Lee Stringer is the author of the acclaimed "Grand Central Winter: Stories from the Street," which chronicled his twelve years of homelessness in New York City. A former editor and columnist of "Street News," his is also the author of "Sleepaway School: A Memoir." He is at work on the forthcoming "White People: Stories from the Suburbs." Dan Simon is founder and publisher of Seven Stories Press, co-author of "Run, Run, Run: The Lives of Abbie Hoffman"; translator of Pascal Bonafoux's "Van Gogh: Self Portraits"; and co-editor of three volumes on Nelson Algren: "Nonconformity," the critical edition of "The Man with the Golden Arm"; and "Entrapment and Other Writings" with Brooke Horvath. Ross Klavan is a writer and performer in New York City. His critically acclaimed original screenplay "Tigerland," based on his novel of the same name, was nominated for the Independent Spirit Award. Art Shay is the author of "Chicago's Nelson Algren." His photographs have graced the covers of "Life" and have been included in the museum exhibits around the world.

From Slapstick's "Turkey Farm" to Slaughterhouse-Five's eternity in a Tralfamadorean zoo cage with Montana Wildhack, the question of the afterlife never left Kurt Vonnegut's mind. In God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian, Vonnegut skips back and forth between life and the Afterlife as if the difference between them were rather slight. In thirty odd "interviews," Vonnegut trips down "the blue tunnel to the pearly gates" in the guise of a roving reporter for public radio, conducting interviews: with Salvatore Biagini, a retired construction worker who died of a heart attack while rescuing his schnauzer from a pit bull, with John Brown, still smoldering 140 years after his death by hanging, with William Shakespeare, who rubs Vonnegut the wrong way, and with socialist and labor leader Eugene Victor Debs, one of Vonnegut's personal heroes. What began as a series of ninety-second radio interludes for WNYC, New York City's public radio station, evolved into this provocative collection of musings about who and what we live for, and how much it all matters in the end. From the original portrait by his friend Jules Feiffer that graces the cover, to a final entry from Kilgore Trout, God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian remains a joy.

Look at the Birdie evokes a world in which squabbling couples, high school geniuses, misfit office workers, and small-town Lotharios struggle to adapt to changing technology, moral ambiguity, and unprecedented affluence. In "Confido," a family learns the downside of confiding their deepest secrets into a magical invention. In "Ed Luby's Key Club," a man finds himself in a Kafkaesque world of trouble after he runs afoul of the shady underworld boss who calls the shots in an upstate New York town. In "Look at the Birdie," a quack psychiatrist turned "murder counsellor" concocts a novel new outlet for his paranoid patients. The stories are cautionary they also brim with his trademark humour. Wry, ironic, satirical and poignant Look at the Birdie reflects the anxieties of the postwar era in which they were written and provides an insight into the development of Vonnegut's early style

"Relentlessly fun to read."--Dave Eggers - A collection of fourteen previously unpublished short stories from one of the most original writers in all of American fiction In this series of perfectly rendered vignettes, written just as he was starting to find his comic voice, Kurt Vonnegut paints a warm, wise, and funny portrait of life in post-World War II America--a world where squabbling couples, high school geniuses, misfit office workers, and small-town lotharios struggle to adapt to changing technology, moral ambiguity, and unprecedented affluence. Here are tales both cautionary and hopeful, each brimming with Vonnegut's trademark humor and profound humanism. A family learns the downside of confiding their deepest secrets into a magical invention. A man finds himself in a Kafkaesque world of trouble after he runs afoul of the shady underworld boss who calls the shots in an upstate New York town. A quack psychiatrist turned "murder counselor" concocts a novel new outlet for his paranoid patients. While these stories reflect the anxieties of the postwar era that Vonnegut was so adept at capturing--and provide insight into the development of his early style--collectively, they have a timeless quality that makes them just as relevant today as when they were written. It's impossible to imagine any of these pieces flowing from the pen of another writer; each in its own way is unmistakably, quintessentially Vonnegut. Featuring a foreword by author and longtime Vonnegut confidant Sidney Offit and illustrated with Vonnegut's characteristically insouciant line drawings, Look at the Birdie is an unexpected gift for readers who thought his unique voice had been stilled forever--and serves as a terrific introduction to his short fiction for anyone who has yet to experience his genius. Includes these never-before-published stories: "Confido" "FUBAR" "Shout About It from the Housetops" "Ed Luby's Key Club" "A Song for Selma" "Hall of Mirrors" "The Nice Little People" "Hello, Red" "Little Drops of Water" "The Petrified Ants" "The Honor of a Newsboy" "Look at the Birdie" "King and Queen of the Universe" "The Good Explainer" " Look at the Birdie] brings us the late writer's young voice as he skewers--sometimes gently, always lethally--post World War II America."--The Boston Globe

The New York Times bestseller from the author of Slaughterhouse-Five--a "gripping" posthumous collection of Kurt Vonnegut's previously unpublished work on the subject of war and peace. A fitting tribute to a literary legend and a profoundly humane humorist, Armageddon in Retrospect is a collection of twelve previously unpublished writings. Imbued with Vonnegut's trademark rueful humor and outraged moral sense, the pieces range from a letter written by Vonnegut to his family in 1945, informing them that he'd been taken prisoner by the Germans, to his last speech, delivered after his death by his son Mark, who provides a warmly personal introduction to the collection. Taken together, these pieces provide fresh insight into Vonnegut's enduring literary genius and reinforce his ongoing moral relevance in today's world. Includes an Introduction by Mark Vonnegut