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Kurt Vonnegut

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Slaughterhouse-Five: Or the Children's Crusade, a Duty-Dance with Death Mass Market Paperback – 3 November 1991

by Kurt Vonnegut (Author)

35,238 ratings

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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 - One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years

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.

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Review

"Poignant and hilarious, threaded with compassion and, behind everything, the cataract of a thundering moral statement."--The Boston Globe

"Very tough and very funny . . . sad and delightful . . . very Vonnegut."--The New York Times

"Splendid . . . a funny book at which you are not permitted to laugh, a sad book without tears."--Life

"Funny, satirical, compelling, outrageous, fanciful, mordant, fecund . . . 'It's too good to be science fiction, ' [the critics] would say. But Vonnegut doesn't care, and you won't care, either, because this is a writer who leaps over genres."--Los Angeles Times

From the Back Cover

"Slaughterhous-Five is one of the world's great anti-war books. Centering on the infamous fire-bombing of Dresden, Billy Pilgrim's odyssey through time reflects the mythic journey of our own fractured lives as we search for meaning in what we are afraid to know.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Dell
Publication date ‏ : ‎ 3 November 1991
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Print length ‏ : ‎ 224 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0440180295
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0440180296
Item weight ‏ : ‎ 1.05 kg
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 10.49 x 1.45 x 17.4 cm
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 850L

Best Sellers Rank: 1,282,428 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- 64 in Classic Literature & Fiction
- 124 in War Fiction (Books)
- 689 in Literary Fiction (Books)

Customer Reviews:
35,238 ratings

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Kurt Vonnegut

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Kurt Vonnegut was a writer, lecturer and painter. He was born in Indianapolis in 1922 and studied biochemistry at Cornell University. During WWII, as a prisoner of war in Germany, he witnessed the destruction of Dresden by Allied bombers, an experience which inspired Slaughterhouse Five. First published in 1950, he went on to write fourteen novels, four plays, and three short story collections, in addition to countless works of short fiction and nonfiction. He died in 2007.

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Ken Williamson
You must read this book!
Reviewed in Australia on 5 August 2024
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I hadn’t read ‘Slaughterhouse 5’ since it was first published. And second time around it was even more impressive than my memory recorded. Not to be missed and the 50th anniversary edition is excellent

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Rinaldo
A Time Travel Classic
Reviewed in Australia on 6 March 2019
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Reading this book in 2019 context, you can easily see how Vonnegut influenced the whole subgenre of Time Travel even in contemporary works: From Ted Chiang's The Arrival and Steins Gate.

Vonnegut excelled in seamlessly weaving his war commentaries with the vague blend of feverish dreams and reality.

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george hadley
... many tears ago so reading the book gave me great pleasure. The definitive description of the destruction was ...
Reviewed in Australia on 14 August 2014
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I saw the movie many tears ago so reading the book gave me great pleasure. The definitive description of the destruction was appalling but having lived through the London blitz, understandable.

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2 people found this helpful

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Lyn Haines
Incredible
Reviewed in Australia on 23 September 2019
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'So it goes.'

I'm not sure how Slaughterhouse-Five has escaped me so far. It's often sitting right in the middle of those top ten 'books to read before you die' lists. I now know why.

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Joe
Great read but the book has some minor imperfections
Reviewed in Australia on 26 June 2021
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
The story is very interesting however the book itself came with little creases near the spine that didn't matter too much and some weird adhesive on the cover that was easily removed with some friction resulting in a nice feeling book.

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Tom Chapman
I am a fan of Kurt Vonnegut and have enjoyed everything he has written
Reviewed in Australia on 29 July 2016
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I am a fan of Kurt Vonnegut and have enjoyed everything he has written, sadly there will be no more. He is sometimes difficult to read and this book was no exception but the knowledge and skill that went into it came from his personal experience and it shone through.

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Colour me shocked!
Been meaning it read this for a long time...
Reviewed in Australia on 7 August 2018
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... and I'm glad I did. Nuff said.

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Raquel
As relevant now as it was when it was written.
Reviewed in Australia on 26 February 2019
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A phlegmatic discourse on the pointlessness of war. Some of the imagery is powerfully unique, but what stood out for me was how applicable the cynicism still is, 50 years after the novel was published. So it goes.

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Top reviews from other countries

Israel Mar Martinez
Recommended
Reviewed in Mexico on 13 October 2024
Format: Mass Market PaperbackVerified Purchase

It was an awesome book, I enjoyed it a lot.

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Yuri Radaelli
Great novel, plenty of humor but also truthful
Reviewed in Italy on 26 April 2023
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This novel is written very well, it's a pleasure to read even if the topic is very dramatic. I strongly suggest to read it.

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Tom A.
Fantastic book - engaging and funny
Reviewed in Sweden on 27 January 2024
Format: Mass Market PaperbackVerified Purchase
This was, and still is, the first Vonnegut book I've read and it's left me wanting more (although the reviews of like every book from him is soo mixed, which is a bit of a deterrent). The story is written in a very interesting way, jumping around but without it being annoying or confusing. The characters are at times very funny, and it's pretty impressive how he could write about such heavy subjects and keep the seriousness of it while this making it soo much lighter. So it goes...

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john mason
Extremely good condition of book received
Reviewed in Canada on 25 June 2025
Verified Purchase
Fast delivery. Plus description of condition was very accurate.

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Fatme Hijazi
Perfect
Reviewed in the United Arab Emirates on 19 September 2022
Format: Mass Market PaperbackVerified Purchase
Good quality, fast delivery, but I haven’t read it yet.

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