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kurt vonnegut jr.

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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".

295 pages, Paperback

First published August 1,1999

This edition

Format
295 pages, Paperback
Published
January 1, 2000 by Vintage
ISBN
9780099282969
ASIN
0099282968
Language
English

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About the author

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kurt vonnegut jr.

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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)

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Rating(4 / 5.0, 99 votes)
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99 reviews All reviews
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Draziti
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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From BBC Radio 4 Extra:
A pioneering astronaut hears voices in outer space. Kurt Vonnegut reflects on mortality and the Cold War. Read by Kerry Shale.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b007jqzb
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jujubeeza
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Again, Kurt Vonnegut has proven his short-story prowess. Not every tale here is a winner, but there were enough to justify the read. I'd be interested to discuss the compilation with others who have read it, to compare which ones stuck with folks. Personally, I'm still contemplating Powder Blue Dragon, Lover's Anonymous, The Runaways, and of course 2BR02B (which I'm sure I read elsewhere first).
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Xavirne
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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This is a collection of short stories Vonnegut wrote when he was just getting started. They were originally published in mass market magazines—not literary journals. As Vonnegut explains in his commentary, he had no clue what he was doing (spoiler, he did), and these magazines provided training ground—that paid; something that no longer exists.

The stories are uniformly entertaining, and you can see precursors of some of his much more developed characters and plots he later used for his novels. Albeit, he does admit some of these stories were heavily edited for this edition, so they don’t really provide a good idea of the quality of his writing in his early years.

I listened to the downloadable audio version. The reading is great, but this was made directly from cassettes. They could have removed a bunch of “this story is continued on the other side” messages!!!

If you a Vonnegut fan, I recommend it. If you are not, this is not the place to start!
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monosyllable
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Even though I wasn't a fan of most of these stories, it's certainly not put me off from reading other Vonnegut books. My personal stand-outs were Powder Blue Dragon and the title story.
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PenguinInTears
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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E aproape obositor să tot constat câți scriitori foarte buni au avut și încă au nord-americanii. Probabil, cea mai mare literatură a lumii.
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i_totally_exist
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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These are very early short stories, that Vonnegut himself cringed at when they were resurrected. They were meant to be published once in a sea of other authors' short stories, and then never see the light of day again. Vonnegut didn't even have his own copies of them anymore.

That said, I thought they were OK for 1940s/1950s short fiction. Now I'm not a huge Vonnegut fan. If you are, you might be disappointed in his early work. For myself, I thought it was worth getting out of the library.
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softmilkmoe
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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For Kurt Vonnegut, I did not care for these stories. I know he got his start in science fiction, but maybe it’s my reluctance to love short stories?

I love everything Papa Kurt has written, but this just didn’t do it for me. I’m really disappointed about it.
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nemowsz
★ ★ ★ ★ ★
April 17,2025
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Ok so they aren’t the best short stories ever written, Vonnegut himself admits that and even had to heavily edit some. But when he was writing these, to paraphrase the great man, he was writing to make his soul grow. There are gems still, gleaming from the rough, filled with deep thoughts and tongue in cheek humour, just as one might expect. And it is occasionally amazing how much he can develop characters over 10-15 pages. It’s rarely vital or life changing stuff but if you enjoy KV you will likely find something of worth.
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