[1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
This Sunday, November 11th, formerly known in the U.S. as Armistice Day [5], would have been my favorite writer, Kurt Vonnegut [6]’s 90th birthday. In Charles J. Shields’ 2011 biography of Vonnegut, And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life [7], he wrote that Vonnegut “was quite proud of being born on a day associated with peace.” A noted and well-known Humanist [8], that’s the kind of fellow that Kurt Vonnegut struck me as: a peacekeeper.
Vonnegut is best known for his novel Slaughterhouse-Five [9], the semi-autobiographical story of Billy Pilgrim, who becomes “unstuck in time”, and which reflects the post-traumatic stress of Vonnegut’s personal experience of the bombing of Dresden. But Vonnegut did not just write novels: he was also an essayist, a playwright, and a writer of short stories. His bibliography is quite extensive, and still expanding [10], and well worth your time, though some works are perhaps more worthwhile than others.
As someone who has made his way through the majority (though not all) of Vonnegut’s work, I have taken it upon myself to curate a list of some of my favorite Vonnegut books that we have here at HCPL in hopes that it will serve as something of a primer and inspiration for those interested in diving deeper into the Vonneverse.
Novels:
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater: or, Pearls Before Swine [1]
Cat’s Cradle [11]
Slaughterhouse-Five: or, The Children’s Crusade, a Duty-Dance with Death [9]
Timequake [12]
Bluebeard [13]
Jailbird [14]
Short Stories & Essays:
Welcome to the Monkey House [15]
Look at the Birdie [16]
While Mortals Sleep [2]
A Man Without a Country [17]
Armageddon in Retrospect [18]
We Are What We Pretend to Be: First and Last Works [3] (Released 10/9)
Miscellany:
Kurt Vonnegut: Letters [4] edited by Dan Wakefield (Released 10/30)
And So It Goes: Kurt Vonnegut: A Life [7] by Charles Shields
---
Have I left out some of your favorites? Have I inspired you to read? Sound off in the comments.
- Kurt Vonnegut [19]
- Books [20]
- Catalog [21]
- Northwest [22]
