Kurt Vonnegut: Letters
Vonnegut, Kurt/ Wakefield, Dan (Editor)
Language: English
Published by Dial Pr, 2014
- Softcover
- New
Seller: Revaluation Books, Exeter, United KingdomRevaluation Books
AbeBooks seller since January 6, 2003
Condition: New
£ 15.90
Quantity: 1 available
Add to basketItem description from seller
Seller Inventory # __0385343760
- Title
- Kurt Vonnegut: Letters
- Author
- Vonnegut, Kurt/ Wakefield, Dan (Editor)
- Publisher
- Dial Pr
- Publication year
- 2014
- Condition
- Brand New
- Binding
- Paperback
- Language
- English
- ISBN 10
- 0385343760
- ISBN 13
- 9780385343763
- Item weight
- 0.35 kilograms
Newsweek/The Daily Beast - The Huffington Post - Kansas City Star - Time Out New York - Kirkus Reviews
This extraordinary collection of personal correspondence has all the hallmarks of Kurt Vonnegut's fiction. Written over a sixty-year period, these letters, the vast majority of them never before published, are funny, moving, and full of the same uncanny wisdom that has endeared his work to readers worldwide.
Included in this comprehensive volume: the letter a twenty-two-year-old Vonnegut wrote home immediately upon being freed from a German POW camp, recounting the ghastly firebombing of Dresden that would be the subject of his masterpiece Slaughterhouse-Five; wry dispatches from Vonnegut's years as a struggling writer slowly finding an audience and then dealing with sudden international fame in middle age; righteously angry letters of protest to local school boards that tried to ban his work; intimate remembrances penned to high school classmates, fellow veterans, friends, and family; and letters of commiseration and encouragement to such contemporaries as Gail Godwin, Günter Grass, and Bernard Malamud.
Vonnegut's unmediated observations on science, art, and commerce prove to be just as inventive as any found in his novels--from a crackpot scheme for manufacturing "atomic" bow ties to a tongue-in-cheek proposal that publishers be allowed to trade authors like baseball players. ("Knopf, for example, might give John Updike's contract to Simon and Schuster, and receive Joan Didion's contract in return.") Taken together, these letters add considerable depth to our understanding of this one-of-a-kind literary icon, in both his public and private lives. Each letter brims with the mordant humor and openhearted humanism upon which he built his legend. And virtually every page contains a quotable nugget that will make its way into the permanent Vonnegut lexicon.
- On a job he had as a young man: "Hell is running an elevator throughout eternity in a building with only six floors."
- To a relative who calls him a "great literary figure" "I am an American fad--of a slightly higher order than the hula hoop."
- To his daughter Nanny: "Most letters from a parent contain a parent's own lost dreams disguised as good advice."
- To Norman Mailer: "I am cuter than you are."
Sometimes biting and ironical, sometimes achingly sweet, and always alive with the unique point of view that made him the true cultural heir to Mark Twain, these letters comprise the autobiography Kurt Vonnegut never wrote.
Praise for Kurt Vonnegut: Letters
"Splendidly assembled . . . familiar, funny, cranky . . . chronicling [Vonnegut's] life in real time."--Kurt Andersen, The New York Times Book Review
"[This collection is] by turns hilarious, heartbreaking and mundane. . . . Vonnegut himself is a near-perfect example of the same flawed, wonderful humanity that he loved and despaired over his entire life."--NPR
"Congenial, whimsical and often insightful missives . . . one of [Vonnegut's] very best."--Newsday
"These letters display all the hallmarks of Vonnegut's fiction--smart, hilarious and heartbreaking."--The New York Times Book Review
"Synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
About the Author
"About the title" may belong to another edition of this title.
Revaluation Books
Exeter, United Kingdom
AbeBooks seller since January 6, 2003
Shipping rates from United Kingdom to U.S.A.
| Item | 7 to 14 business days | 2 to 3 business days |
|---|---|---|
| First item | £ 10.00 | £ 25.00 |
Payment methods
Seller's business information
Edward Bowditch Ltd
Exstowe, Exton
Exeter, United Kingdom EX3 0PP
Terms of sale
Legal entity name: Edward Bowditch Ltd
Legal entity form: Limited company
Business correspondence address: Exstowe, Exton, Exeter, EX3 0PP
Company registration number: 04916632
VAT registration: GB834241546
Authorised representative: Mr. E. Bowditch
Right of withdrawal
If you are a consumer you can withdraw from the contract in accordance with the following. Consumer means any natural person who is acting for purposes which are outside his trade, business, craft or profession.
Information regarding the right of withdrawal
Statutory right to withdraw
You have the right to withdraw from this contract within 14 days without giving any reason.
The withdrawal period will expire after 14 days from the day on which you acquire, or a third party other than the carrier and indicated by you acquires, physical possession of the last good or the last lot or piece.
To exercise the right of withdrawal, electronically fill in and submit a clear statement on our website, under "My Purchases" in "My Account". We will communicate to you an acknowledgement of receipt of such a withdrawal on a durable medium (e.g. by e-mail) without delay.
To meet the withdrawal deadline, it is sufficient for you to send your communication concerning your exercise of the right of withdrawal before the withdrawal period has expired.
Effects of withdrawal
If you withdraw from this contract, we will reimburse to you all payments received from you, including the costs of delivery (except for the supplementary costs arising if you chose a type of delivery other than the least expensive type of standard delivery offered by us).
We may make a deduction from the reimbursement for loss in value of any goods supplied, if the loss is the result of unnecessary handling by you.
We will make the reimbursement without undue delay, and not later than 14 days after the day on which we are informed about your decision to withdraw from this contract.
We will make the reimbursement using the same means of payment as you used for the initial transaction, unless you have expressly agreed otherwise; in any event, you will not incur any fees as a result of such reimbursement.
We may withhold reimbursement until we have received the goods back, or you have supplied evidence of having sent back the goods, whichever is the earliest.
You shall send back the goods or hand them over to Revaluation Books, Hounslow, United Kingdom, without undue delay and in any event not later than 14 days from the day on which you communicate your withdrawal from this contract to us. The deadline is met if you send back the goods before the period of 14 days has expired. You will have to bear the direct cost of returning the goods. You are only liable for any diminished value of the goods resulting from the handling other than what is necessary to establish the nature, characteristics and functioning of the goods.
Exceptions to the right of withdrawal
The right of withdrawal does not apply to:
- The delivery of newspapers, journals or magazines with the exception of subscription contracts; and
- The supply of digital content which is not supplied on a tangible medium (e.g. on a CD or DVD) if you accepted when you placed your order that we could start to deliver it, and that you could not withdraw once delivery had started.
Shipping terms
Orders usually dispatched within two working days.