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[AugustWest]

Watch out, you're treading on AW's lit-crush.

Naw, I can handle it.  I think a lot of Salinger, but I understand why a lot of people don't like him. 

Now if you start talking smack about Vonnegut, somebody's gonna lose an eye.

[littlefallsmets]

And then I'd quickly take out the other eye.

[AugustWest]

Start with Slaughterhouse Five, then go to Cat's Cradle, then maybe Bluebeard or Breakfast of Champions.

[littlefallsmets]

Yeah, I'd consider Cat's Cradle to be his best work but the idiocyncracies of his writing style in that might be a little off-putting for a first read.

And I love Breakfast of Champions but there's no doubt that it is somewhat self-indulgent on certain level.

I also have a sweet spot in my heart for Player Piano as, though it is hardly his most original work and maybe his book with the least tinge of science fiction, it is the closest thing I've seen to a major work of fiction (that is to say, a less popular early work by a major author) that mentions Little Falls, NY.

As a stop on a train ride, of course.

[Drygioni]

Pfft. Vonnegut's a hack

I love him more than my own mother

[Drygioni]

I wasn't even aware you read English.

Well I can't read any other language competently

I wasn't even aware you read, English.

I am a voracious reader. I study English at university which means I have to read a novel a week (ridiculous tbf, no way to appreciate a book cramming it in like that) and in my free time love to read, esp. Vonnegut but also Orwell, Greene, Rushdie, among many others

[Drygioni]

OK, so it goes in fine, it's just the output process where things get dodgy then.

Me fail English? That's unpossible!

I have to save my good writing for non-trivial matters lest I waste it all on fake people from the internet

[pmcd9]

All right, you eye-snatching motherfucks, bring the strong sack then. I've spent near 42 years never having scanned a page of Vonnegunt. Give me starter I can walk into the book man and pick up, something a non-Vonniegunt reader can hash into.

Yeah, what he said.

Start with Slaughterhouse Five, then go to Cat's Cradle, then maybe Bluebeard or Breakfast of Champions.

Oh yeah, that guy.  I read Slaughterhouse Five.  I liked it.  It didn't inspire me to want to read more Vonnegut though.

I liked the Slaughterhouse Five movie quite a lot.  I'm surprised they haven't remade that.

[Drygioni]

I quite like Mother Night, too. Quite accessible I reckon

[CortJstr]

Player Piano was my least favorite by far. Of course now I can't even recall what it's about.

[jay-ell]

OK, so it goes in fine, it's just the output process where things get dodgy then.

He speaks English just fine, it's American he has trouble with.

[AugustWest]

Player Piano was my least favorite by far. Of course now I can't even recall what it's about.

Well, it was the first and it was before he really developed his style.  The same themes are there, but to me it's mostly interesting as a "developmental" piece.  I like The Sirens of Titan much more.

[KeithHernandez]

I quite like Mother Night, too. Quite accessible I reckon

That is my favorite one.  For Ash's taste probably start here or, yeah, Slaughterhouse Five.

Vonnegut is easily my favorite author.  Unlike with some of my favorite bands, none of his books have ever disappointed me.  I love everything of his that I have read.

[theinevitable]

Any of you guys read any TC Boyle?

I think his writing style is going to make me jump out a window. This book is alternating between late 60s and the 1600s, and the parts set in the sixties are fine. But in the 1600s he can't help but use Dutch words instead of English words, and explain every damn thing like it's a sci-fi novel. "Pieter grabbed the woorkhoe the Van Geelder's had given him after last Bedanksgiverning, walking along the Oppomotowok ridge towards the Hudson River (which was called the Norte River then). He went to visit Van Woorten, the cynosure of all New Amsterdam."

I mean, he does it better than that. But it is killing me. I can see why my girlfriend loves this, her writing has a similar thing where sometimes it crosses the line into seeming like she wants you to count all the big words she knows.

I don't know, he is an author people like and she's been published and awarded so maybe I'm just grumpy.

[theinevitable]

ok, now that I'm 3/4 done, I like it a lot more. The story is good, his writing style still bugs me sometimes though.