Showing results by author "Kurt Vonnegut" in All Categories

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.

With cutting wit, fierce conviction, and surprising empathy, Vonnegut explores a diverse range of topics including society, politics, sex, literature, and mortality. Fans who believe they've read all of Vonnegut's work will be delighted to find the author speaking frankly about timely and relevant new topics - with an amusing yet insightful style that's instantly recognizable.

Perhaps the most autobiographical (and deliberately least disciplined) of Vonnegut's novels, Slapstick (1976) is in the form of a broken family odyssey and is surely a demonstration of its eponymous title. The story centers on brother and sister twins, children of Wilbur Swain, who are in sympathetic and (possibly) telepathic communication and who represent Vonnegut's relationship with his own sister who died young of cancer almost two decades before the book's publication.

Kurt Vonnegut’s eldest daughter, Edith, was cleaning out her mother’s attic when she stumbled upon a dusty, aged box. Inside, she discovered an unexpected treasure: more than 200 love letters written by Kurt to Jane, spanning the early years of their relationship.

Kurt Vonnegut (November 11, 1922-April 11, 2007) was an American author known for his satirical and darkly humorous novels, including his most famous, Slaughterhouse-Five, published in 1969. His works include fourteen novels, three short-story collections, five plays, and five nonfiction pieces. In the following May 1994 recording, Vonnegut addresses the graduating class of Syracuse University in Syracuse, New York.

The New York Times best seller from the author of Slaughterhouse-Five—a “gripping” posthumous collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s previously unpublished work on the subject of war and peace.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to a literary legend and a profoundly humane humorist, Armageddon in Retrospect is a collection of 12 previously unpublished writings. Imbued with Vonnegut's trademark rueful humor and outraged moral sense.

From the author of such classics as Breakfast of Champions and Cat's Cradle comes this collection of unabridged short fiction originally published in some of America's most popular magazines of the 1950s and 60s. Vonnegut himself selected his best early works for this collection, and he reads the preface and afterword to boot!

A professor discovers the secret of mind over matter - then struggles to keep his power out of the hands of the military. Based on a Kurt Vonnegut story, this episode of Dimension X originally aired on April 22, 1950.

Kurt Vonnegut presents in Fates Worse than Death a veritable cornucopia of his thoughts on what could perhaps best be summed up as "anti-theology", a manifesto for atheism that details Vonnegut's drift from conventional religion, even a tract evidencing belief in the divine held within each individual self--the deity within each individual person present in a universe that otherwise lacks any real order.

2 B R 0 2 B is a science fiction short story by Kurt Vonnegut, originally published in the digest magazine Worlds of If Science Fiction for January 1962, and collected in Vonnegut's Bagombo Snuff Box (1999). The title is pronounced "2 B R naught 2 B" and references the famous phrase "to be, or not to be" from William Shakespeare's Hamlet. In the story, the title refers to the telephone number that one dials to schedule an assisted suicide with the Federal Bureau of Termination.

Als Winston Niles Rumfoord sein Raumschiff in ein chrono-synklastisches Infidibulum flog, wurde er in pure Energie verwandelt. Er wird nur dann wieder stofflich, wenn seine Energiewelle einen Planeten kreuzt – also materialisiert er sich alle 59 Tage in seiner Heimat Newport, Rhode Island, und das auch nur für eine Stunde. Aber immerhin weiß er jetzt alles über alles, was je geschehen ist und je geschehen wird.

Kurt Vonnegut creates a near-perfect world. There are no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, and no wars. All diseases were conquered. So is old age. Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers. The population of the United States is stabilized at forty-million souls. Have a problem? Not really, just call the Federal Bureau of Termination. Nothing to it. Just pick up the phone and call 2BR02B. Thus the title, "To be or not to be".

In 2022, acclaimed American author, Kurt Vonnegut, turns 100 years old. From the Kurt Vonnegut Museum & Library, The Vonnecast explores the ways Vonnegut’s legacy has shaped the lives of others and continues to make souls grow.

Three disparate and suspenseful looks at ourselves in three very different worlds. These engaging short stories by three of the masters of American science fiction literature, Isaac Asimov, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., and Philip K. Dick, open windows into our psyches, our souls, and our surroundings that presage the world we find ourselves in today. Like episodes of The Twilight Zone, cinematic in their language and characters, the stories connect with our times in surprising ways.

In the not-too-distant future, 2185 AD, anti-gerisone is the new drug that stops ageing. People are now living into their hundreds until it's time to take their own big trip up yonder, and in the case of the Ford family and Gramps, the notable patriarch, families are living and fighting together in one home for much longer. Eventually there are no prisons, slums, asylums, poverty, wars, or disease. and 200 years later the population of the US is set at 40 million people. But since no one gets any older, someone must volunteer to die if a baby is born.

"2 B R 0 2 B" (pronounced: to be or not to be), was first published in 1962, and introduces the listener to a future where old age has been cured, population control has been implemented to keep the United States population at exactly 40 million, and death is voluntary. "The Big Trip Up Yonder" was published in 1954, and is similarly themed (old age has been cured), but in opposite. This story follows the Ford family who has 23 members spanning several generations all living together in a small one bedroom apartment under the tyrannical head of the family, "Gramps".

Kurt Vonnegut was a groundbreaking American writer, the author of such classics as Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat's Cradle. In a future where sickness and disease are a forgotten memory, and death itself has been cured, population control requires special consideration, and the concept of "life for life" has a new definition.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr. (1922-2007) was a prolific and genre-bending American novelist known for works blending satire, black comedy, and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973).

These two short works, "The Big Trip Up Yonder" and "2BR02B", are science fiction tales originally published in the magazines Galaxy Science Fiction and If: Worlds of Science Fiction in 1959 and 1962.

What if there were a product that taken daily and barring an untimely accident or murder allowed one to live indefinitely? In Kurt Vonnegut Jr's fanciful tale, that is just what happens. At first the miracle product Anti-gerasone seems like a blessing. But what if the population keeps breeding? How to make room for the new ones. And then there is the problem of the curmudgeon who doesn't get the stuff until he's in his late 70s becomes head of the family and is still going strong 104 years later.

Let yourself be swept away by these classic tales of hope and courage!!

- Classic tales (short stories and poems) of hope and courage from the 19th and 20th centuries

Annotated for modern listeners

The third entry in the Classic Tales series, joining "Classic Tales of Horror" and "Classic Tales of Christmas"

For adventure fans of all ages, these stories are guaranteed to intrigue, delight, and sometimes take you by surprise!