Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Kurt Vonnegut, Junior was an American novelist, satirist, and most recently, graphic artist. He was recognized as New York State Author for 2001-2003. He was born in Indianapolis, later the setting for many of his novels. He attended Cornell University from 1941 to 1943, where he wrote a column for the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Vonnegut trained as a chemist and worked as a journalist before joining the U.S. Army and serving in World War II. After the war, he attended University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology and also worked as a police reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He left Chicago to work in Schenectady, New York in public relations for General Electric. He attributed his unadorned writing style to his reporting work. His experiences as an advance scout in the Battle of the Bulge, and in particular his witnessing of the bombing of Dresden, Germany whilst a prisoner of war, would inform much of his work. This event would also form the core of his most famous work, Slaughterhouse-Five, the book which would make him a millionaire. This acerbic 200-page book is what most people mean when they describe a work as "Vonnegutian" in scope. Vonnegut was a self-proclaimed humanist and socialist (influenced by the style of Indiana's own Eugene V. Debs) and a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union.The novelist is known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973)
2 B R 0 2 B
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
This Seedbox Classics edition of 2 B R 0 2 B or 2BR02B includes illustrations.2 B R 0 2 B by Kurt Vonnegut is a science fiction story that focuses on a society where individuals have an indefinite lifespan and the population of the United States is limited to forty million. In order for a new birth to take place, someone else must die. The suspense builds as two parents wait for someone to dial 2 B R 0 2 B, which is the telephone number to dial for an assisted suicide with the Federal Bureau of Termination.
2BR02B
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Through the progress of science, human lifespans have been extended indefinitely, leading the government to enact strict rules to keep the earth's population under control. So when Edward K. Wehling, Jr. finds out that he and his wife are expecting triplets, he has to find a way to meet the nearly impossible birth requirements for each of his three unborn children.
"2 B R 0 2 B," pronounced "to be or not to be," is an intentional reference to the famous line in William Shakespeare's Hamlet. The short story was originally published in the Worlds of IF Science Fiction magazine and is referenced by author Kurt Vonnegut in his later novel, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater.
HarperPerennial Classics brings great works of literature to life in digital format, upholding the highest standards in ebook production and celebrating reading in all its forms. Look for more titles in the HarperPerennial Classics collection to build your digital library.
2BRO2B
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Everything was perfectly swell.There were no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, no wars.All diseases were conquered. So was old age.Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers.The population of the United States was stabilized at forty-million souls.One bright morning in the Chicago Lying-in Hospital, a man named Edward K. Wehling, Jr., waited for his wife to give birth. He was the only man waiting. Not many people were born a day any more.
Abatorul cinci
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
A Man Without a Country
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
In a volume that is penetrating, introspective, incisive, and laugh-out-loud funny, one of the great men of letters of this era—or any era—holds forth on life, art, sex, politics, and the state of America’s soul. Whether he is describing his coming of age in America, his formative war experiences, or his life as an artist, this is Vonnegut doing what he does best: being himself. Whimsically illustrated by the author, A Man Without a Country is intimate, tender, and brimming with the scope of Kurt Vonnegut’s passions.
Armageddon in Retrospect
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
To be published on the first anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut's death, Armageddon in Retrospect is a collection of twelve new and unpublished writings on war and peace, imbued with Vonnegut's trademark rueful humor.
As sereias de Titã (Portuguese Edition)
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Quando Malachi Constant, um irreparável milionário fanfarrão, recebe a profecia de que viajará pelo espaço e terá um filho com uma parceira inusitada, sua reação se divide entre o encanto e a incredulidade. Nem mesmo esse aviso poderia prepará-lo para o seu destino, que envolve lavagem cerebral, um exército marciano, uma amizade com fim trágico e estranhas criaturas de Mercúrio.As Sereias de Titã é uma divertida e ultrajante história sobre livre arbítrio e moralidade. Com seu humor sarcástico e agridoce, a força narrativa inconfundível de Vonnegut guia o leitor pelas bizarras desventuras de um homem pelo espaço, ao mesmo tempo em que fala sobre militarismo, religião e o propósito da vida humana.
Baci da 100 dollari
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Bagombo Snuff Box
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
For this unusual collection, Kurt Vonnegut has selected 24 of his favourite stories never published before in book form. Included are "Any Reasonable Offer", "The Powder Blue Dragon", "Hal Irwin's Magic Lamp" and "Lovers Anonymous".
Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
For this unusual collection of vintage Vonnegut, the author selected 24 of his stories, written between 1954 and 1961 and published in magazines, and added a new Preface for the occasion.
Bluebeard
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Broad humor and bitter irony collide in this fictional autobiography of Rabo Karabekian, who, at age seventy-one, wants to be left alone on his Long Island estate with the secret he has locked inside his potato barn. But then a voluptuous young widow badgers Rabo into telling his life story—and Vonnegut in turn tells us the plain, heart-hammering truth about man’s careless fancy to create or destroy what he loves.
Breakfast of Champions
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found here
In Breakfast of Champions, one of Kurt Vonnegut’s most beloved characters, the aging writer Kilgore Trout, finds to his horror that a Midwest car dealer is taking his fiction as truth. What follows is murderously funny satire, as Vonnegut looks at war, sex, racism, success, politics, and pollution in America and reminds us how to see the truth.
Bun venit printre maimuțe
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Canary in a Cat House
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Published in 1961, Canary in a Cathouse is a collection of twelve short stories. Except for Hal Irwin's magic lamp, eleven of them reappear in the later collection Welcome to the Monkey House.
Contents:
- Report on the barnhouse effect
- All the king's horses
- D.P.
- The manned missiles
- The Euphio question
- More stately mansions
- The Foster portfolio
- Deer in the works
- Hal Irwin's magic lamp
- Tom Edison's shaggy dog
- Unready to wear
- Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow
Cat’s Cradle
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Told with deadpan humour and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut's cult tale of global destruction preys on our deepest fears of witnessing Armageddon and, worse still, surviving it ...
Dr Felix Hoenikker, one of the founding 'fathers' of the atomic bomb, has left a deadly legacy to the world. For he's the inventor of 'ice-nine', a lethal chemical capable of freezing the entire planet. The search for its whereabouts leads to Hoenikker's three ecentric children, to a crazed dictator in the Caribbean, to madness. Felix Hoenikker's Death Wish comes true when his last, fatal gift to humankind brings about the end, that for all of us, is nigh...
Deadeye Dick
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Deadeye Dick is Kurt Vonnegut’s funny, chillingly satirical look at the death of innocence. Amid a true Vonnegutian host of horrors—a double murder, a fatal dose of radioactivity, a decapitation, an annihilation of a city by a neutron bomb—Rudy Waltz, aka Deadeye Dick, takes us along on a zany search for absolution and happiness. Here is a tale of crime and punishment that makes us rethink what we believe . . . and who we say we are.
Dio la benedica, dottor Kevorkian
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Drawings
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Fates Worse Than Death: An Autobiographical Collage of the 1980s
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
s/t: An Autobiographical Collage of the 1980s
Preface
21 Sections
Appendices w/Comments by the author:
What My Son Mark Wanted Me to Tell the Psychiatrists in
Philadelphis, which was also the Afterword to a New Edition
of his Book The Eden Express
On Literature by Karel Capek, from Toward the Radical Center,
Catbird Press, '90
What Bernard V. O'Hare Said about Our Friendship on My 60th
Birthday
From The Bomber's Baedeker, Guide to the Economic Importance of
German Towns & Cities, '44
English Translation of the Latin Mass Promulgated by Pope St Pius
V in 1570 by Decree of the Council of Trent
Mass Promulgated by Me in 1985
Latin Version of My Mass by John F. Collins
Unpublished Essay by Me, Written after Reading Galleys of an
Anthology of 1st-rate Poems & Short Prose Pieces by Persons Who
Were or Are in Institutions for the Mentally Ill
My Reply to a Letter from the Dean of the Chapel at Transylvania
University about a Speech I Gave There
Also several photos & drawings
Galápagos
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Galápagos 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 Galápagos 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.
God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
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.
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Second only to Slaughterhouse-Five of Vonnegut's canon in its prominence and influence, God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965) presents Eliot Rosewater, an itinerant, semi-crazed millionaire wandering the country in search of heritage and philanthropic outcome, introducing the science fiction writer Kilgore Trout to the world and Vonnegut to the collegiate audience which would soon make him a cult writer.
Trout, modeled according to Vonnegut on the science fiction writer Theodore Sturgeon (with whom Vonnegut had an occasional relationship) is a desperate, impoverished but visionary hack writer who functions for Eliot Rosewater as both conscience and horrid example. Rosewater, seeking to put his inheritance to some meaningful use (his father was an entrepreneur), tries to do good within the context of almost illimitable cynicism and corruption.
It is in this novel that Rosewater wanders into a science fiction conference--an actual annual event in Milford, Pennsylvania--and at the motel delivers his famous monologue evoked by science fiction writers and critics for almost half a century: "None of you can write for sour apples... but you're the only people trying to come to terms with the really terrific things which are happening today." Money does not drive Mr. Rosewater (or the corrupt lawyer who tries to shape the Rosewater fortune) so much as outrage at the human condition.
The novel was adapted for a 1979 Alan Menken musical. The novel is told mostly thru a collection of short stories dealing with Eliot's interactions with the citizens of Rosewater County, usually with the last sentence serving as a punch line. The antagonist's tale, Mushari's, is told in a similar short essay fashion. The stories reveal different hypocrisies of humankind in a darkly humorous fashion.
Guarda l'uccellino
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Happy Birthday, Wanda June
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
In his first published play, Kurt Vonnegut finds a powerful vehicle for his tragicomical imagination. When the great hunter Harold Ryan--missing and presumed dead--returns from Africa after eight years, his wife is aghast and his son is enchanted. Vonnegut's attack on phony heroes and male swagger uses some of the funniest dialogue ever created for the stage.
Harrison Bergeron
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
"The year was 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren't only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way..."
It is the year 2081. Because of Amendments 211, 212 and 213 to the Constitution, every American is fully equal, meaning that no one is stupider, uglier, weaker, or slower than anyone else. The Handicapper General and a team of agents ensure that the laws of equality are enforced.
One April, fourteen-year-old Harrison Bergeron is taken away from his parents, George and Hazel, by the government and to a place unknown. But what happens in the aftermath will challenge the status quo and inspire his peers about the hidden potential within one's own individuality.
Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1922–2007) was an American novelist, satirist, and most recently, graphic artist. He was born in Indianapolis, later the setting for many of his novels. His experiences as an advance scout in the Battle of the Bulge during WWII, and in particular his witnessing of the bombing of Dresden, Germany whilst a prisoner of war, would inform much of his work. The novelist is best known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as 'Slaughterhouse-Five' (1969), 'Cat's Cradle' (1963), and 'Breakfast of Champions' (1973).
Hocus Pocus
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Here is the adventure of Eugene Debs Hartke. He's a Vietnam veteran, a jazz pianist, a college professor, and a prognosticator of the apocalypse (and other things Earth-shattering). But that's neither here no there. Because at Tarkington College—where he teaches—the excrement is about to hit the air-conditioning. And its all Eugene's fault.
If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice for the Young
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Master storyteller and satirist Kurt Vonnegut was one of the most in-demand commencement speakers of his time. For each occasion, Vonnegut's words were unfailingly unique, insightful, and witty, and they stayed with audience members long after graduation.
This expanded second edition includes more than sixty pages of further thoughts from Kurt (whose good advice wasn’t limited to graduation speeches).
As edited by Dan Wakefield, this book reads like a narrative in the unique voice that made Vonnegut a hero to readers of all ages. At times hilarious, razor-sharp, freewheeling, and deeply serious, these reflections are ideal for anyone undergoing what Vonnegut would call their “long-delayed puberty ceremony”—marking the passage from student to full-time adult.
If This Isn't Nice, What Is?: Advice to the Young—The Graduation Speeches
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Best known as one of our most astonishing and enduring contemporary novelists, Kurt Vonnegut was also a celebrated commencement address giver. He himself never graduated college, so his words to any class of graduating seniors always carried the delight, and gentle irony, of someone savoring an achievement he himself had not had occasion to savor on his own behalf. Selected and introduced by fellow novelist and friend Dan Wakefield, the speeches in If This Isn’t Nice, What Is? capture this side of Kurt Vonnegut for the first time in book form. There are nine speeches, seven given at colleges, one to the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, one on the occasion of Vonnegut receiving the Carl Sandburg Award. In each of these talks Vonnegut takes pains to find the few things worth saying and a conversational voice to say them in that isn’t heavy-handed or pretentious or glib, but funny and serious and joyful even if sometimes without seeming so.
If This Isn't Nice, What Is? (Even More) Expanded Third Edition: The Graduation Speeches and Other Words to Live By
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
A collection of commencement speeches and other wit and wisdom from the New York Times–bestselling literary icon and author of Slaughterhouse-Five. Master storyteller and satirist Kurt Vonnegut was one of the most in-demand commencement speakers of his time. For each occasion, Vonnegut's words were unfailingly insightful and witty, and they stayed with audience members long after graduation. This expanded second edition also includes more than sixty pages of further thoughts from Kurt (whose good advice wasn’t limited to graduation speeches). Edited by Dan Wakefield, and including such pieces as “How to Make Money and Find Love!,” “How to Have Something Most Billionaires Don’t,” and “Somebody Should Have Told Me Not to Join a Fraternity,” this book reads like a narrative in the unique voice that made Vonnegut a hero to readers everywhere. Hilarious, razor-sharp, freewheeling, and at times deeply serious, these reflections are ideal not just for graduates but for anyone undergoing what Vonnegut would call their “long-delayed puberty ceremony”—marking the long and challenging passage to full-time adulthood. “Like Mark Twain, Mr. Vonnegut used humor to tackle the basic questions of human existence.” —The New York Times
Jailbird
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
“[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
Kolíbka
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Základním motivem románu známého amerického autora je představa zkázy světa, kterou přivodil člověk nezodpovědným zacházením s objevy vědy a techniky.
Nejedná se o klasickou sci-fi, i když autor některých jejích formálních prostředků používá. V románu se prolíná fikce s realitou a záměrem je snaha přimět současného člověka k zamyšlení nad základními otázkami lidské existence - válkami, třídní společností, rasismem, devastací přírody apod. Kniha vyniká naléhavostí obsahu a sdělnou metodou, udržující čtenáře ve stálém napětí.
Kurt Vonnegut: Letters
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
This collection includes the letter the twenty-two-year old Vonnegut wrote home immediately upon being freed from the German POW camp; wry dispatches from Vonnegut�s years as a struggling writer; a letter to the CEO of Eagle Shirtmakers with a crackpot scheme to manufacture �atomic� bow ties; angry letters of protest to local school boards that tried to ban his work; letters to his children including advice like �Don�t let anybody tell you that smoking and boozing are bad for you. Here I am fifty-five years old, and I never felt better in my life�; fantastically wise letters to writers such as Norman Mailer, Gunter Grass, and Bernard Malamud; and his characteristically modest response to being called a �great literary figure�: �I am an American fad�of a slightly higher order than the hula hoop.�
Like Vonnegut�s books, his letters make you think, they make you outraged and they make you laugh. Written over a sixty-year period, and never published before, these letters are alive with the unique point of view that made Vonnegut one of the most original writers in American fiction.
Las sirenas de Titán
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Cuando aún no se conocía el sentido de la vida, la humanidad salió a buscarlo al espacio, solo para encontrar la misma vacuidad y falta de razón que existía en la Tierra. Winston Niles Rumfoord, millonario explorador y aventurero, desmaterializado y ondulado desde el Sol hasta Betelgeuse tras caer en un infundibulum crono-sinclástico, estará detrás de la invasión marciana de la Tierra y del nacimiento de la primera gran religión universal: la Iglesia de Dios, el absolutamente indiferente.
Like Shaking Hands with God: A Conversation About Writing
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Features photographs and transcripts of a seminar hosted by the authors on October 1, 1998 during which they spoke together about the process of writing, being a writer, and what it means to be human. Reprint.
Look at the Birdie
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Look at the Birdie is a surprising and often hilarious collection of stories set in post-war America, a world of squabbling couples, high school geniuses, misfit office workers, and small-town Lotharios.
Though written early in his career and never published before, these stories showcase all Vonnegut's trademark skills - a deep sense of humanity, a sharp eye for the absurd and humour in the most unlikely of places.
Look at the Birdie: Unpublished Short Fiction
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Look at the Birdie is 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.
Contents:
Letter from Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., to Walter J. Miller, 1951.
Confido
F U B A R
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
Matadero Cinco
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Matadero Cinco o La cruzada de los niños catapultó a Kurt Vonnegut como uno de los grandes ídolos de la juventud norteamericana y se convirtió de inmediato en un clásico de la literatura contemporánea. Una historia amarga, conmovedora y a la vez divertidísima, de la inocencia confrontada con el apocalipsis, «una novela con ribetes esquizofrénico-telegráficos», en palabras de su autor. Kurt Vonnegut fue hecho prisionero en la Segunda Guerra Mundial y se encontraba en Dresde cuando esta ciudad fue bombardeada y arrasada por la aviación norteamericana; este hecho le marcó profundamente y decidió escribir un libro en torno a ese tema: "Matadero Cinco".
La historia de un superviviente de la matanza que, muchos años más tarde, es raptado y transportado al planeta Trafalmadore es una de las muchas tramas que se entrecruzan en una obra profundamente innovadora, en la que resplandecen cegadoras metáforas de la nueva era y en la que los pasajes de ciencia-ficción funcionan a la manera de los payasos de Shakespeare. El humor, a menudo muy negro, es esencial en la obra de Vonnegut, quien ha afirmado que «lo cómico es parte tan integral en mi vida que empiezo a trabajar en una historia sobre cualquier tema y, si no encuentro elementos cómicos, la dejo».
Matadero cinco. La cruzada de los niños
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
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. 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.
Mattatoio n. 5
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Mattatoio n. 5 è la storia semiseria di Billy Pilgrim, un americano medio, un uomo qualunque con però l'eccezionale capacità di passare da una dimensione spaziale all'altra. Senza essere in grado di impedire la cosa, può trovarsi ora a Dresda durante la seconda guerra mondiale, ora nello zoo fantascientifico di Tralfamadore dove è esposto come esemplare della razza umana. Ma "Mattatoio n. 5" è anche uno dei più importanti libri contro la guerra che siano mai stati scritti, autentica pietra miliare della letteratura antimilitarista. Kurt Vonnegut trae ispirazione dalla sua personale esperienza bellica quando, fatto prigioniero dai nazisti, ebbe la ventura di assistere alla distruzione di Dresda, la Firenze del Nord, da parte degli Alleati. Fu testimone di uno dei terribili bombardamenti della storia, sopravvivendo grazie al suo osservatorio molto particolare: una grotta scavata nella roccia sotto un mattatoio, adibita a deposito di carni, nelle viscere della città. Quando alla fine uscì all'aperto, al posto di una delle più belle città del mondo c'era un'ondulata distesa di macerie sopra un numero incalcolabile di morti. L'unico modo per narrare questa terribile esperienza, di per sé assolutamente indicibile, pare allora per Vonnegut quello visionario e di una comicità paradossale, che sa affiancare con maestria sorriso e dolore, grottesco e leggerezza della fantasia.
Mattatoio n. 5 o La crociata dei Bambini
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Verso la fine della seconda guerra mondiale Vonnegut, americano di origine tedesca, accorse con tanti altri emigranti in Europa per liberarla dal flagello del nazismo. Fatto prigioniero durante la battaglia delle Ardenne, ebbe la ventura di assistere al bombardamento di Dresda dall'interno di una grotta scavata nella roccia sotto un mattatoio, adibita e deposito di carni. Da questa dura e incancellabile esperienza nacque Mattatoio n. 5 o La crociata dei bambini, storia semiseria di Billy Pilgrim, americano medio affetto da un disturbo singolare ("ogni tanto, senza alcuna ragione apparente, si metteva a piangere") e in possesso di un segreto inconfessabile: la conoscenza della vera natura del tempo. Tutto è, è sempre stato e sempre sarà, passato e futuro sono sempre esistiti e sempre esisteranno, nulla dipende dalla volontà dell'uomo. "Prenda la vita momento per momento", dice a Billy Pilgrim l'ultraterrestre che un bel giorno d'estate lo rapisce col suo disco volante, "e vedrà che siamo, tutti, insetti in un blocco d'ambra".
Mother Night
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Librarian note: Alternate cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.
Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense. American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as a Nazi war criminal. But is he really guilty? In this brilliant book rife with true gallows humor, Vonnegut turns black and white into a chilling shade of gray with a verdict that will haunt us all.
Palm Sunday/Welcome to the Monkeyhouse
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
A diabolical government asserts control by eliminating orgasms from sex in the title story of Welcome to the Monkey House - setting the tone for a collection shot through with Vonnegut's acrid wit, and his bewilderment at the corruption of humanity.
From riffs on country music, George Bush, and his mother's midnight mania, to a bittersweet tribute to a dead friend, Palm Sunday demonstrates why Kurt Vonnegut is equally well known as an essayist and commentator as he is a novelist.
This caustic, funny and poignant collection resonates with Vonnegut's singular voice.
Pity the Reader: On Writing With Style
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
The art and craft of writing by one of the few grandmasters of American literature, a bonanza for writers and readers co-written by Kurt Vonnegut's former student.
Here is an entirely new side of Kurt Vonnegut, Vonnegut as a teacher of writing. Of course he's given us glimpses before, with aphorisms and short essays and articles and in his speeches. But never before has an entire book been devoted to Kurt Vonnegut the teacher. Here is pretty much everything Vonnegut ever said or wrote having to do with the writing art and craft, altogether a healing, a nourishing expedition. McConnell has outfitted us for the journey, and in these 37 chapters covers the waterfront of how one American writer brought himself to the pinnacle of the writing art, and we can all benefit as a result.
Kurt Vonnegut was one of the few grandmasters of American literature, whose novels continue to influence new generations about the ways in which our imaginations can help us to live. Few aspects of his contribution have not been plumbed--fourteen novels, collections of his speeches, his essays, his letters, his plays--so this fresh view of him, written by a former student, is a bonanza for writers and readers and Vonnegut fans everywhere.
Player Piano
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Kurt Vonnegut’s first novel spins the chilling tale of engineer Paul Proteus, who must find a way to live in a world dominated by a supercomputer and run completely by machines. Paul’s rebellion is vintage Vonnegut—wildly funny, deadly serious, and terrifyingly close to reality.
Alternate cover edition here
Quando siete felici, fateci caso
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Nelle università americane il commencement speech è il discorso ufficiale ai laureandi tenuto al termine dell’anno accademico ai laureandi da una personalità di spicco del mondo della cultura o della politica. Negli ultimi anni, i discorsi agli studenti di scrittori come David Foster Wallace (Questa è l’acqua) e George Saunders (L’egoismo è inutile) sono diventati grazie al passaparola dei veri e propri oggetti di culto, per gli studenti e non solo. Questo volume raccoglie nove discorsi tenuti da Kurt Vonnegut fra il 1978 e il 2004, e si propone come una piccola summa del pensiero di un maestro geniale e irriverente della letteratura del Novecento. Fra aforismi, ricordi, aneddoti, riflessioni, i discorsi di Vonnegut brillano dello stesso spirito e anticonformista che anima la sua narrativa; mai predicatorio, mai consolatorio, ma capace di sferrare attacchi frontali allo status quo, cantare inni alla libertà e alla creatività dell’essere umano, spiazzare e divertire con il suo humour dissacrante, Kurt Vonnegut ci parla ancora, a qualche anno dalla morte, con una voce modernissima e utile a leggere il mondo in maniera critica e potenzialmente rivoluzionaria.
Slapstick, or Lonesome No More!
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Slapstick presents an apocalyptic vision as seen through the eyes of the current King of Manhattan (and last President of the United States), a wickedly irreverent look at the all-too-possible results of today’s follies. But even the end of life-as-we-know-it is transformed by Kurt Vonnegut’s pen into hilarious farce—a final slapstick that may be the Almighty’s joke on us all.
Slaughterhouse-Five
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
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. 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.
Slice of Life (Singles Classic)
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
The corridor of the Fine Arts Building was deserted, save for two figures at the far end, two men approaching slowly. Rose was about to go into the classroom, where she’d left her purse, when she saw a sign on the door—a crude sign in pencil, on a ragged sheet of paper. “Collapse of Western Civilization — Dr. Norbert Beilstein,” it said. “Visitors welcome.”Previously unpublished, Slice of Life—about a college coed’s winter-induced dream—is an early testament to Kurt Vonnegut’s original voice and curious imagination. Cover design by Adil Dara.
Sucker's Portfolio
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Sun Moon Star
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
When the Creator of the universe came to Earth, It resolved to be born a male human infant, and this is what It saw when It opened Its eyes.
The Big Trip Up Yonder
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
The story is set in 2158 A.D., after the invention of a medicine called Anti-Gerasone, which is made from mud and dandelions and is thus inexpensive and widely available. Anti-Gerasone halts the aging process and prevents people from dying of old age as long as they keep taking it; as a result, America now suffers from severe overpopulation and shortages of food and resources. With the exception of the very wealthy, most of the population appears to survive on a diet of foods made from processed seaweed and sawdust. Gramps Ford, his chin resting on his hands, his hands on the crook of his cane, was staring irascibly at the five-foot television screen that dominated the room. On the screen, a news commentator was summarizing the day's happenings. Every thirty seconds or so, Gramps would jab the floor with his cane-tip and shout, "Hell, we did that a hundred years ago!" Emerald and Lou, coming in from the balcony, where they had been seeking that 2185 A.D. rarity--privacy--were obliged to take seats in the back row, behind about a dozen relatives with whom they shared the house. All save Gramps, who was somewhat withered and bent, seemed, by pre-anti-gerasone standards, to be about the same age--somewhere in their late twenties or early thirties. Gramps looked older because he had already reached 70 when anti-gerasone was invented. He had not aged in the 102 years since. "Next one shoots off his big bazoo while the TV's on is gonna find hisself cut off without a dollar--" his voice suddenly softened and sweetened--"when they wave that checkered flag at the Indianapolis Speedway, and old Gramps gets ready for the Big Trip Up Yonder." He sniffed sentimentally, while his heirs concentrated desperately on not making the slightest sound. For them, the poignancy of the prospective Big Trip had been dulled somewhat, through having been mentioned by Gramps about once a day for fifty years.
The Sirens of Titan
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
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.
Timequake
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
According to science-fiction writer Kilgore Trout, a global timequake will occur in New York City on 13th February 2001. It is the moment when the universe suffers a crisis of conscience. Should it expand or make a great big bang? 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 – not to mention the torture of reliving every nanosecond of one of the tawdiest and most hollow decades.
With his trademark wicked wit, Vonnegut addresses memory, suicide, the Great Depression, the loss of American eloquence, and the obsolescent thrill of reading books.
Un uomo senza patria
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER“[This] may be as close as Vonnegut ever comes to a memoir.” –Los Angeles Times“Like [that of] his literary ancestor Mark Twain, [Kurt Vonnegut’s] crankiness is good-humored and sharp-witted. . . . [Reading A Man Without a Country is] like sitting down on the couch for a long chat with an old friend.” –The New York Times Book ReviewIn a volume that is penetrating, introspective, incisive, and laugh-out-loud funny, one of the great men of letters of this age–or any age–holds forth on life, art, sex, politics, and the state of America’s soul. From his coming of age in America, to his formative war experiences, to his life as an artist, this is Vonnegut doing what he does best: Being himself. Whimsically illustrated by the author, A Man Without a Country is intimate, tender, and brimming with the scope of Kurt Vonnegut’s passions.“For all those who have lived with Vonnegut in their imaginations . . . this is what he is like in person.” –USA Today“Filled with [Vonnegut’s] usual contradictory mix of joy and sorrow, hope and despair, humor and gravity.” –Chicago Tribune“Fans will linger on every word . . . as once again [Vonnegut] captures the complexity of the human condition with stunning calligraphic simplicity.” –The Australian“Thank God, Kurt Vonnegut has broken his promise that he will never write another book. In this wondrous assemblage of mini-memoirs, we discover his family’s legacy and his obstinate, unfashionable humanism.” –Studs Terkel
Wampeters, Foma and Granfalloons
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Welcome to the Monkey House
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Welcome to the Monkey House is a collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s shorter works. Originally printed in publications as diverse as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and The Atlantic Monthly, these superb stories share Vonnegut’s audacious sense of humor and extraordinary range of creative vision.
Alternative cover edition here
While Mortals Sleep
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
In While Mortals Sleep men and machines, art and artifice, fortune and fame become curiously twisted. A travelling salesman falls in love a robot, Jenny, a refrigerator with personality. A man plays with his model trains too much until the women in his life decide to take matters into their own hands.A young typist receives a plea for help on her Dictaphone - it is from an escaped, dying murderer hiding somewhere in the works of her company's factory. In the title story, a hard-nosed reporter is called upon to judge the annual Christmas lights competition - a job that leads him to learn something about the true meaning of Christmas.
While Mortals Sleep: Unpublished Short Fiction
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Foreword by Dave EggersSmart, whimsical, and often scathing, the fiction of Kurt Vonnegut influenced a generation of American writers—including Dave Eggers, author of this volume’s Foreword. In these previously unpublished gems, Vonnegut’s originality infuses a unique landscape of factories, trailers, and bars—and characters who pit their dreams and fears against a cruel and sometimes comically indifferent world.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, commanding an army of bulldozers, graders, and asphalt spreaders, 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. A hog farmer’s widow receives cryptic, unsolicited letters from a man in Schenectady about “the indefinable sweet aches of the spirit.” But what will she find when she goes to meet him in the flesh?These beautifully rendered works are a testament to Vonnegut’s unique blend of observation and imagination. Like a present left behind by a departed loved one, While Mortals Sleep bestows upon us a shimmering Kurt Vonnegut gift: a poignant reflection of our world as it is and as it could be.
Бойня номер п’ять, або Дитячий хрестовий похід
Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
© 2024 Pagebound