What is your favorite Kurt Vonnegut book?

Answer 1

Now that's a tough choice.

"Slaughterhouse Five" is brillant, but I've always had a soft spot in my heart for "Cat's Cradle."

"Cat's Cradle is a 1963 science fiction novel by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Published as 'Ice Nine' in some territories, it explores issues of science, technology and religion, satirizing the arms race and many other targets along the way. Having turned down his original thesis, in 1971 the University of Chicago awarded Vonnegut his Master's degree in anthropology for Cat's Cradle.
Cat's Cradle was nominated for a Hugo Award for Best Novel in 1964.
A few years after the publication of Cat's Cradle, Soviet scientists announced the discovery of polywater, a substance eerily similar to ice-nine. The fervor around polywater lasted a few years but subsided when the initial results were shown to have been caused by impurities."

"In Cat's Cradle, Kurt Vonnegut, Jr., created a new religion, Bokononism. The holy scripture of Bokononism was the ever-growing "Books of Bokonon", written by Bokonon -- a British Episcopalian ***** from the island of Tobago whose real name was Lionel Boyd Johnson [ 48 ] -- as a way to distract the people of San Lorenzo from their pitiful lives. What is sacred to Bokononists? Not God; just one thing: man. [ 94 ]

All material contained below was written by Kurt Vonnegut and scattered throughout Cat's Cradle wherever it best suited the novel. I have merely tabulated -- as best I could -- his snippets into an order that one might find in a real copy of the Books of Bokonon. I have also tried to cross-reference these snippets to the numbered sections of the novel, where you may read of scripture in the context of Vonnegut's story."

Novels

Player Piano (1952)
Sirens of Titan, the (1959)
Mother Night (1962)
Cat's Cradle (1963)
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater (1965)
Slaughterhouse-Five (1966)
Breakfast of Champions (1973)
Slapstick (1976)
Jailbird (1979)
Deadeye Dick (1982)
Galapagos (1985)
Bluebeard (1987)
Hocus Pocus (1990)
Fates Worse Than Death (1991)
Timequake (1997)
Man Without a Counry, a (2005)

Collections:

Canary in a Cathouse (1961)
Welcome to the Monkey House (1968)
Wampeters, Foma & Granfalloons (1974)
Palm Sunday (1981)
Nothing is Lost Save Honor (1984)
Bagombo Snuff Box: Uncollected Short Fiction (1999)
God Bless You, Dr. Kevorkian (1999)

Anthologies:

World's Best Science Fiction: 1969 (1969)
Again, Dangerous Visions (1977)
World Treasury of Science Fiction, the (1989)
Wizards of Odd, the (1996)
Flying Sorcerers, the (1997)

Picture Books:

Sun, Moon, Star (1980)
Plays:

Happy Birthday, Wanda June (1971)

Answer 2

My favorite book is Slaughterhouse Five, but my favorite work of his is a short story called Harrison Bergeron...it's very different...

Answer 3

Cat's Cradle

Answer 4

I agree with Demerit: "Breakfast of Champions." What a great example of the postmodern novel. The narrator can't even keep control of his own characters...

Answer 5

I agree, tough choice.

Slaughterhouse Five is my favorite, but God Bless You Mr. Rosewater is a close second.

Answer 6

"Slaughterhouse-Five"