Monday, December 21, 2009

Any Vonnegut fans out there?

When I'm not reading fantasy or sci-fi, I try to fit in some classics or even some books by authors I think are awesome. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. happens to be one of those authors I will go to every now and then when I need a break from the usual, even though a lot of his novels have a sci-fi twist to them.


The Sirens of Titan was my first entrance into Vonnegut's crazy mind and it remains one of my all time favorite books. Never before (and I think never since then) have I actually laughed out loud while reading a book. And I'm talking an honest laugh, not a fake laugh to try to get people around me to ask me what I'm reading (although I've been guilty of that before). :)

I was at a used book store the other day and I got to talking with the owners about Vonnegut, since one of them happened to be a fan, and they found (on Wikipedia so it wasn't too hard to find) a list of his own books Kurt Vonnegut graded. The list is actually found at the end of his novel Palm Sunday and I thought it was interesting enough to repeat here:


Player Piano: B

The Sirens of Titan: A

Mother Night: A

Cat's Cradle: A+

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater: A

Slaughterhouse-Five: A+

Welcome to the Monkey House: B-

Happy Birthday, Wanda June: D

Breakfast of Chapions: C

Slapstick: D

Jailbird: A

Palm Sunday: C


I've only read books he considers to be A's or A+'s so I have yet to find out what he considers to be a "bad" book. Palm Sunday was published in 1981, so this list doesn't include a lot of the newer novels, of which there are quite a few.

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