The Vonnegut Encyclopedia

The Vonnegut Encyclopedia
Author: Marc Leeds
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Total Pages: 786
Release: 2016-10-25
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0804179921

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Now expanded and updated, this authorized compendium to Kurt Vonnegut’s novels, stories, essays, and plays is the most comprehensive and definitive edition to date. Over the course of five decades, Kurt Vonnegut created a complex and interconnected web of characters, settings, and concepts. The Vonnegut Encyclopedia is an exhaustive guide to this beloved author’s world, organized in a handy A-to-Z format. The first edition of this book covered Vonnegut’s work through 1991. This new and updated edition encompasses his writing through his death in 2007. Marc Leeds, co-founder and founding president of the Kurt Vonnegut Society and a longtime personal friend of the author’s, has devoted more than twenty-five years of his life to cataloging the Vonnegut cosmos—from the birthplace of Kilgore Trout (Vonnegut’s sci-fi writing alter ego) to the municipal landmarks of Midland City (the midwestern metropolis that is the setting for Vonnegut’s 1973 masterpiece Breakfast of Champions). The Vonnegut Encyclopedia identifies every major and minor Vonnegut character from Celia Aamons to Zog, as well as recurring images and relevant themes from all of Vonnegut’s works, including lesser-known gems like his revisionist libretto for Stravinsky’s opera L’Histoire du soldat and his 1980 children’s book Sun Moon Star. Leeds provides expert notes explaining the significance of many items, but relies primarily on extended quotations from Vonnegut himself. A work of impressive scholarship in an eminently browsable package, this encyclopedia reveals countless connections readers may never have thought of on their own. A rarity among authors of serious fiction, Kurt Vonnegut has always inspired something like obsession in his most dedicated fans. The Vonnegut Encyclopedia is an invaluable resource for readers wishing to revisit his fictional universe—and those about to explore it for the first time. Praise for The Vonnegut Encyclopedia “An essential collection for fans of the singular satirist.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Indispensable.”—Publishers Weekly “If you’re somebody who has read one Kurt Vonnegut book then there’s a chance you’ve read them all. For the devout reader of Vonnegut there’s a voracious sense of completism. And, Marc Leeds and his new [The Vonnegut] Encyclopedia are here to guide you through it all. Just don’t blame him if you become unstuck in time while you’re reading.”—Inverse “Vonnegut enthusiasts will be delighted with Leeds’s exhaustive, almost obsessive, treatment of the characters, places, events, and tantalizingly mysterious references for which Vonnegut’s five-decade writing career is celebrated. . . . A wonderful and beautifully designed reference source.”—Booklist (starred review) “Leeds’s scholarship and genuine love for his subject matter render this encyclopedia a treasure trove for Vonnegut readers.”—The Nameless Zine

The Vonnegut Encyclopedia

The Vonnegut Encyclopedia
Author: Marc Leeds
Publisher: Greenwood
Total Pages: 720
Release: 1995
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

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The authorized source for rediscovering Vonnegut, this encyclopedia provides a comprehensive descriptive catalog of characters, themes, phrasing, and imagery found in Kurt Vonnegut's novels, short stories, plays, and essays.

The Vonnegut Encyclopedia

The Vonnegut Encyclopedia
Author: Marc Leeds
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Total Pages: 786
Release: 2016-10-25
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0385344236

Download The Vonnegut Encyclopedia Book in PDF, Epub and Kindle

Now expanded and updated, this authorized compendium to Kurt Vonnegut’s novels, stories, essays, and plays is the most comprehensive and definitive edition to date. Over the course of five decades, Kurt Vonnegut created a complex and interconnected web of characters, settings, and concepts. The Vonnegut Encyclopedia is an exhaustive guide to this beloved author’s world, organized in a handy A-to-Z format. The first edition of this book covered Vonnegut’s work through 1991. This new and updated edition encompasses his writing through his death in 2007. Marc Leeds, co-founder and founding president of the Kurt Vonnegut Society and a longtime personal friend of the author’s, has devoted more than twenty-five years of his life to cataloging the Vonnegut cosmos—from the birthplace of Kilgore Trout (Vonnegut’s sci-fi writing alter ego) to the municipal landmarks of Midland City (the midwestern metropolis that is the setting for Vonnegut’s 1973 masterpiece Breakfast of Champions). The Vonnegut Encyclopedia identifies every major and minor Vonnegut character from Celia Aamons to Zog, as well as recurring images and relevant themes from all of Vonnegut’s works, including lesser-known gems like his revisionist libretto for Stravinsky’s opera L’Histoire du soldat and his 1980 children’s book Sun Moon Star. Leeds provides expert notes explaining the significance of many items, but relies primarily on extended quotations from Vonnegut himself. A work of impressive scholarship in an eminently browsable package, this encyclopedia reveals countless connections readers may never have thought of on their own. A rarity among authors of serious fiction, Kurt Vonnegut has always inspired something like obsession in his most dedicated fans. The Vonnegut Encyclopedia is an invaluable resource for readers wishing to revisit his fictional universe—and those about to explore it for the first time. Praise for The Vonnegut Encyclopedia “An essential collection for fans of the singular satirist.”—San Francisco Chronicle “Indispensable.”—Publishers Weekly “If you’re somebody who has read one Kurt Vonnegut book then there’s a chance you’ve read them all. For the devout reader of Vonnegut there’s a voracious sense of completism. And, Marc Leeds and his new [The Vonnegut] Encyclopedia are here to guide you through it all. Just don’t blame him if you become unstuck in time while you’re reading.”—Inverse “Vonnegut enthusiasts will be delighted with Leeds’s exhaustive, almost obsessive, treatment of the characters, places, events, and tantalizingly mysterious references for which Vonnegut’s five-decade writing career is celebrated. . . . A wonderful and beautifully designed reference source.”—Booklist (starred review) “Leeds’s scholarship and genuine love for his subject matter render this encyclopedia a treasure trove for Vonnegut readers.”—The Nameless Zine

Sun Moon Star

Sun Moon Star
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Publisher: RosettaBooks
Total Pages: 66
Release: 2016-11-08
Genre: Juvenile Fiction
ISBN: 0795335520

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The only children’s book by the author of Slaughterhouse-Five “spins the Nativity tale in a cerebral, humanist direction” (The New York Times Book Review). Sun Moon Star is the story of the birth of Jesus—as told by Kurt Vonnegut. This children’s book takes the newborn Jesus’ perspective, offering beautiful and insightful descriptions of the world from someone newly born into it. In this book, we follow Jesus and meet the people most important to his life—presented in new and surprising ways. A powerful departure from Vonnegut’s more adult work, Sun Moon Star gives readers a rare glimpse of the writer’s talent in a format that’s unique and unexpected. This book’s well-crafted simplicity is sure to make it a favorite—with both children and adult readers who are Vonnegut fans. “Vonnegut tells the story of the Nativity in his own original style that’s both delightful and charming. Complete with illustrations, this is a read suitable for both children and adults alike.”—The Bookbag, UK “It’s Vonnegut’s descriptions of the sheer newness of human experience (the child’s ‘fourth dream was simply green. It had never seen/ green/ before’) that make this an intriguing and memorable perspective on the Incarnation.”—Publishers Weekly

Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback
Total Pages: 285
Release: 1999-01-12
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0385333846

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Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece, Slaughterhouse-Five is “a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century” (Time). Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time 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. Authors as wide-ranging as Norman Mailer, John Irving, Michael Crichton, Tim O’Brien, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Strout, David Sedaris, Jennifer Egan, and J. K. Rowling have all found inspiration in Vonnegut’s words. Jonathan Safran Foer has described Vonnegut as “the kind of writer who made people—young people especially—want to write.” George Saunders has declared Vonnegut to be “the great, urgent, passionate American writer of our century, who offers us . . . a model of the kind of compassionate thinking that might yet save us from ourselves.” More than 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.

Complete Stories

Complete Stories
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Publisher: Seven Stories Press
Total Pages: 15
Release: 2017-09-26
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 1609808088

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Here for the first time is the complete short fiction of one of the twentieth century's foremost imaginative geniuses. More than half of Vonnegut's output was short fiction, and never before has the world had occasion to wrestle with it all together. Organized thematically—"War," "Women," "Science," "Romance," "Work Ethic versus Fame and Fortune," "Behavior," "The Band Director" (those stories featuring Lincoln High's band director and nice guy George Hemholtz), and "Futuristic"—these ninety-eight stories were written from 1941 to 2007, and include those Vonnegut published in magazines and collected in Welcome to the Monkey House, Bagombo Snuff Box, and other books; here for the first time five previously unpublished stories; as well as a handful of others that were published online and read by few. During his lifetime Vonnegut published fewer than half of the stories he wrote, his agent telling him in 1958 upon the rejection of a particularly strong story, "Save it for the collection of your works which will be published someday when you become famous. Which may take a little time." Selected and introduced by longtime Vonnegut friends and scholars Dan Wakefield and Jerome Klinkowitz, Complete Stories puts Vonnegut's great wit, humor, humanity, and artistry on full display. An extraordinary literary feast for new readers, Vonnegut fans, and scholars alike.

Kurt Vonnegut

Kurt Vonnegut
Author: James Lundquist
Publisher: Frederick Ungar
Total Pages: 146
Release: 1977
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN:

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Chapters include Cosmic Irony, Science Fiction and The New Reality of Slaughterhouse-Five.

Between Time and Timbuktu

Between Time and Timbuktu
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Publisher: Dial Press
Total Pages: 50
Release: 2020-04-21
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 0593229401

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An experimental television play composed of excerpts from his novels and stories, Between Time and Timbuktu features Kurt Vonnegut’s special blend of scientific expertise, wit, and penetrating comment. “Most unusual, ultra imaginative . . . a sort of cross between 2001: A Space Odyssey and Alice in Wonderland.”—Philadelphia Inquirer The basic story line: Young Stony Stevenson wins a jingle contest and, as his prize, is blasted off into the time-space warp. The country’s first poet-astronaut thus experiences both past and future human history simultaneously. His observations on it consist mainly of dramatized selections from the author’s works. The result is a unique Vonnegut sampler cast in the form of “an excellent drama” (Pittsburgh Press).

The Writer's Crusade

The Writer's Crusade
Author: Tom Roston
Publisher: Abrams
Total Pages: 182
Release: 2021-11-09
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1683359240

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The story of Kurt Vonnegut and Slaughterhouse-Five, an enduring masterpiece on trauma and memory Kurt Vonnegut was twenty years old when he enlisted in the United States Army. Less than two years later, he was captured by the Germans in the single deadliest US engagement of the war, the Battle of the Bulge. He was taken to a POW camp, then transferred to a work camp near Dresden, and held in a slaughterhouse called Schlachthof Fünf where he survived the horrific firebombing that killed thousands and destroyed the city. To the millions of fans of Vonnegut’s great novel Slaughterhouse-Five, these details are familiar. They’re told by the book’s author/narrator, and experienced by his enduring character Billy Pilgrim, a war veteran who “has come unstuck in time.” Writing during the tumultuous days of the Vietnam conflict, with the novel, Vonnegut had, after more than two decades of struggle, taken trauma and created a work of art, one that still resonates today. In The Writer’s Crusade, author Tom Roston examines the connection between Vonnegut’s life and Slaughterhouse-Five. Did Vonnegut suffer from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? Did Billy Pilgrim? Roston probes Vonnegut’s work, his personal history, and discarded drafts of the novel, as well as original interviews with the writer’s family, friends, scholars, psychologists, and other novelists including Karl Marlantes, Kevin Powers, and Tim O’Brien. The Writer’s Crusade is a literary and biographical journey that asks fundamental questions about trauma, creativity, and the power of storytelling.

We Are What We Pretend To Be

We Are What We Pretend To Be
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Publisher: Vanguard Press
Total Pages: 0
Release: 2013-10-08
Genre: Fiction
ISBN: 9780306822780

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Kurt Vonnegut's first and last works come together for the first time in print, in a collection aptly titled after his famous phrase, We Are What We Pretend To Be.