Kurt Vonnegut Books In Order

Publication Order of Delta Fiction Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Short Story Collections

Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books

Publication Order of Biographies & Memoirs

Publication Order of Plays

Publication Order of Children's Books

Publication Order of Slaughter-House Five Books

Publication Order of The Last Interview Books

Publication Order of Anthologies

About Kurt Vonnegut:

There are writers not from this generation that has written critically acclaimed books that can capture the reader’s hearts and minds. These books and novels are called classics in this generation, and in the ironic circumstance that since Kurt Vonnegut is a pacifist, he often writes about the pains of war, the sacrifices and idealisms of the people who were affected by the war. These are some types of genre that people are looking for, especially those readers that are looking for some action in the books that they are reading, and where they can connect with the characters of the book that is in their hand.

Who is Kurt Vonnegut and his Writing Style

A critical pacifist intellectual and a veteran of the war, Kurt Vonnegut was born in Indianapolis, Indiana on November 11, 1922. His parents were a third Generation German-American, and have a hierarchy of successful relatives. His great grandfather was the founder of the Vonnegut Hardware Company, Clemens Vonnegut Sr. His father and grandfather; Kurt and Bernard Vonnegut were both architects of Vonnegut and Bohn, an Indianapolis firm. With such great, noble origin, Kurt was very diligent with his studies as a student. He was given with the gift of thoughts and words, as he was the Assisting Managing Editor and Associate Director of The Cornell Daily Sun, the official publication of the Cornell University back on his college days. After, he enlisted himself in the army during World War 2. He was a private in the United States Army, 423rd Infantry Regiment, 106th Infantry Division. He experienced greater pain and suffering throughout the war. After he came back from his duty, he was awarded a “Purple Heart” after he was liberated at the Saxony-Czechoslovakian Border by the Red Army Troops in 1945. After that, he studied anthropology at the University of Chicago, and wrote “Cat’s Cradle”, his fourth novel and was published first in 1963. Because of this, he was awarded his Master Degree.

He started his writing career on a short story entitled “Report on Barnhouse Effect” on February 11, 1950, an edition of Colliers. His first novel was Player Piano, a science fiction dystopian novel about the negligence of having a world with political repression pollution, poverty, societal collapse, pollution, political repression, or totalitarianism affects the quality of life. He was also an artist, and has a great knowledge with politics and religion.

His most common genre in writing his books is commonly described as a realist. But in some occasions, Kurt wrote some science fiction along with all his collection of books that have sold and been critically acclaimed by award giving bodies in his generation, and even before he passed away.

Books He Wrote:

Mother Night

This novel goes with the memoirs of an American named Howard W. Campbell, Jr. who was a Nazi propagandist and a well-known playwright. He narrated his action of the novel, as he writes his memoirs in an Israeli Prison while waiting for his trial for his war crimes. It started when he was approached by a US War Department agent, Frank Wirtanen on a park bench in the Berlin Zoo, but he rejects the offer.

These are the common events that happen across the globe during the time of the world war where many people have suffered because of their beliefs and ideals. This portrays a realistic fact that the suffering of some people is left unrecognized that some may have died in vain during the war.

Mother Night was adapted in a film in 1996 and his third novel after “The Sirens of Titan” in October 31, 1959 and it was Hugo Award-nominated.

Slapstick or Lonesome, No More!

This was his eighth novel and was also adapted in a film in 1984 entitled “Slapsticks of another Kind”. Along with this novel, he meditates on the closed nature of his sister Alice (died of cancer in 1958). This novel is dedicated to Laurel and Hardy (Arthur Stanley Johnson and Norvell Hardy) who has been his reference to his novel. This novel depicts the loneliness according to Vonnegut’s views, in social or individual scale. The story goes in an autobiography of Dr. Wilbur Daffodil Swain, a man who was secluded by their parents in the society together with his sister, Eliza because upon they realize that, when they have a physical contact with each other, they form a tremendous amount of creative and powerful intelligence.

Although the word slapstick was common in Kurt’s generation where people are easily tickled by the action slapstick where people in films or stage plays inflicts pain in a “funny” manner. Instead of the reader expecting something like these scenarios, the reader will be in shock and awe that the story really is not about comedy, but instead dealing with the loneliness of a loved one passing. There are other aspects of the story that’s being covered in Slapstick or Lonesome, No more! And this is something that the reader could only understand when they will be put in the limelight during the time that they will be reading this novel.

Summary

Kurt Vonnegut’s novels can be an eye opener to some readers that patronizes his work. There are many things in life that people have to understand and realize during their lifetime, that along the way, long before they have existed, there are people who gave up some of their happiness and freedom so that the people of this generation will have their freedom and happiness, away from oppression and persecution. Many have even given their lives just to forge a free world, and that Kurt’s books makes the readers realize about the suffering of the people who lived long ago for the kind of freedom that the people of today is currently enjoying.

His works are really worth reading, especially to the younger generation all because of the values and lessons that they could pick up during the time that they are reading Kurt’s novels. He’s got more than 40+ novels to choose from and with that kind of coverage, the readers can just pick one that will suit their reading style and the connection that they want to establish with the novel, the character and the story that the book may deliver towards the reader themselves. It is worth the time reading his novels.