[twog]

Vonnegut is the author that I wish I was, and was a major influence on my reading, thinking and creating. Strongly recommend picking up a few of his novels, you wont be able to put them down. My favorites are Slaughterhouse Five, Cats Cradle, Breakfast of Champions and God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

[ticmasta]

I agree that everyone should try and read Vonnegut but don't expect everyone to enjoy it or find in it the awakening I sure did.

I think his writing really clicks with a particular type of person at a particular time in their life; if either is not quite right it seems reactions range from disinterest to hostility.

I discovered Sirens of Titan and Player Piano in high school and loved them immediately (unlike so much assigned reading) but I'm not sure I'd feel the same if I was to read them for the first time at this stage in my life. For instance, I still enjoy re-reading Hocus Pocus or Jailbird but not so much Slaughterhouse Five. I can't precisely say why, but so it goes...

[johnmc408]

I kinda had the same feeling with Slaughterhouse Five as you. I know with music this has happened to me...but some albums, if I listen to them enough, I start to really like them. Maybe you should try reading SH5 a few times and see how it settles in...the first time reading it was soo good...

[mattbierner]

Timequake is also a great one if you've enjoyed his other work

  I taught how to be sociable with ink on paper. I told
  my students that when they were writing they should be
  good dates on blind dates, should show strangers good
  times. Alternatively, they should run really nice
  whorehouses, come one, come all, although they were in
  fact working in perfect solitude. I said I expected
  them to do this with nothing but idiosyncratic
  arrangements in horizontal lines of twenty-six phonetic
  symbols, ten numbers, and maybe eight punctuation
  marks, because it wasn't anything that hadn't been done
  before.

  — Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut

[geocar]

Timequake is one of my favourites too, but really every Vonnegut book I have read is a treat.

Sure the Bible might be the greatest story ever told, but the most popular story is about a couple who has a good time fornicating, but then stops for one reason or another while it is still a novelty.

[ams6110]

Vonnegut was a favorite of my senior-year high school English teacher. She assigned several of his books.