Slapstick: Or, Lonesome No More! | 
Hit up my local used book shop today, and the incredible owner remembered me as the Vonnegut collector, and had a book for me! I‘ve only been in a couple of times, so it meant the world to me. 🩷 #CitySquareBooks #bookhaul #shoplocal
pickRead this for IRL book club and I think I was the only one who liked it! It‘s a difficult tale to summarize but it‘s about the human condition. The absurdity he envelopes it in doesn‘t hide the sadness & consequences of loneliness. I read the prologue 3x because first, Vonnegut bares his soul in his own detached way, and second, it encapsulates the story which follows.
This is my first Vonnegut and I‘m glad to have read it.
I haven‘t picked or really looked at a book in a couple months.
I read the first chapter or 20 pages of the tagged book some time ago. Not sure what my problem is. I‘ll get passed it eventually. I guess I should renew my library card so I can get back on Libby that might help.
Here is Isabella being Isabella.
🪸 I chose my feeling/emotion. I‘ll scan my shelves or scroll through Libby or Kindle Unlimited until something strikes me.
🐠 by how it makes me feel, the story, the writing. Mostly feeling though.
🐢my parents as usual. They go above and beyond for us (me).
#wonderouswednesday
@Eggs
Vonnegut will fix my reading funk!
#ThoughtfulThursday @MoonWitch94
Vermont doesn't give you much choice but to read inside, but on those rare, warm spring days I love reading on the deck.
No challenges for me. I have enough stress as it is 😄
Tagging @Twainy @Gissy @laurenashley @eeclayton
There was very little love in their films. There was often the situational poetry of marriage...
...Love was never at issue. And, perhaps because I was so perpetually intoxicated and instructed by Laurel and Hardy during my childhood in the Great Depression, I find it natural to discuss life without ever mentioning love.
It does not seem important to me.
What does seem important? Bargaining in good faith with destiny.
pickThe story of a brother and sister, two halves of a twin "genius brain", who become stupid, vain and unhappy when separated. Vonnegut claims he daydreamed the idea for this novel on a plane ride to Indiana to attend his uncle's funeral, but the real inspiration seems to be his sister, who died of cancer at age 41. Actually, the real subject is loneliness itself; I can't think of anyone who processes grief as uniquely and poignantly as Vonnegut.
He asked me how my work was going. I think he respects but is baffled by my work.
I said that I was sick of it, but that I had always been sick of it. I told him a remark which I had heard attributed to the writer Renata Adler, who hates writing, that a writer was a person who hated writing.
#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl
This is the closest I will ever come to writing an autobiography.
1. I don't know what plans are anymore. I will go to sleep, several times. I will most likely wake up. In between I'll go to work. Somewhere in there I'll vacuum the living room. 🥴
2. Romance
3. The Dragon Waiting
@Cupcake12 #motivationalmonday
Tagging all who wish to be tagged! 👋
Nothing better than finding leftover gift cards from Christmas with money still on them. I don't even have to feel guilty buying books I probably could have gotten from the library. (Not that I'd truly feel guilty anyway, but still... 😁)
so-soCold day, cuddled up with my T-shirt quilt and Vonnegut. It‘s true to its title, verbal slapstick! To KV, life is a battle against absurdity and meaninglessness. The heartbreaking story behind the story is Kurt‘s sister died shortly after her husband died leaving 3 sons-💔Kurt and wife adopted the orphans. If you can handle the nonsensical satire and the feeling of WTH?? you‘ll enjoy. Day 5 #joyousjanuaryreadathon #bookspinbingo
pickIncredibly strange, completely excellent. I think I‘m becoming a Vonnegut fangirl. This was so surreal, funny and thought provoking, it felt like a bizarre drunken thought experiment I was going along on but also somehow very significant? Such a clever look at loneliness and connection.
#scarathlon2020 #teamharkness @StayCurious +16 pts
pickVonnegut‘s science-fiction satire about the effects of loneliness and the importance of being connected to others, is vintage Vonnegut. I loved this.
The gravity is very light today. I have an erection as the result of that. All males have erections on days like these.
Day 13:A Book📚for when I want/need a laugh😄-In this case it would be Books📚! One can never go wrong when seeking laughs if they go w/Palahniuk or Vonnegut. What can I say except 😍They get me!😂& I 🖤 them w/every beat of my blackened heart 🖤 & soul lol🤘🏼💀🖤😂 #SurvivingDecember #BookTherapy #PhotoChallenge #Day13 #Laugh
so-so“...all the damaging excesses of Americans in the past were motivated by loneliness rather than a fondness for sin”, so said by the Last President of the US and current King of Manhattan; campaign slogan: Lonesome No More!
Not the best Vonnegut, therefore the so-so rating, but still entertaining and thought-provoking, as he can be.
Those of you who have read this will understand the doughnuts 😉
This was my vacation read; finished last night.
so-soAs much as I loved and laughed at the absurd stories of the life of the final POTUS, written in such snappy paragraphs that I felt carried along on his wild journeys without question, I really wanted the ending of the honest, (albeit more traditional) autobiography, that I started to read in the first 12 pages of the book. This felt so familiar that I felt I could have been reading about members of my own family and I wanted more of this.
I braved Target for birthday shopping, Man Cub turns 9 Tuesday, so I rewarded myself. I really need to stop. I have a problem. I could have bought a lot more though and my addiction could be worse.
pickStrange- as Vonnegut always is. I don't think this will ever end up at the top of my Vonnegut favorites list, but I will definitely be pondering it for awhile.
I'm so excited! #bookmail And the cover seems to match my yarn so well
pick"Why don't you take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut? Why don't you take a flying fuck at the mooooooooooooon?"
I don't really know what to say about this book. It's totally absurd. Also smart, witty, and completely entertaining. Not my favorite KV, but a worthy read.
2 of 26: #LetterV #LitsyAtoZ
1 of ?: #MountTBR
My first cup of coffee in FIVE days. I've been sick (I'm fine now) and the doctor said no caffeine. I was not prepared for the ensuing days-long headache. 😵
#currentlyreading
pickIf you've never read Vonnegut before, don't start here. If you have, also grab this one. It's a whole bunch of WTF and "What am I even reading?" But it's fantastic. Also, I have just learned there was a film adaptation of this book in the 80s. Oh dear.
Feeding my Vonnegut addiction. Hi ho.
And in today's edition of #LibrarySale #BookHaul :$4.
Y'all are such a bad influence on me but it's also the best thing ever. #UnderTheLitfluence #DamnitLitsy
I am not sure this is true, but some days it feels that way
pickI love Vonnegut and have read most of his books. Those I haven't I am rationing out, but today just felt the need. What a strange but endearing story. I am not sure I can say more which would make sense. I could call it the memoir of the last president of the USA, written from a largely depopulated New York but that would make it sound like a post apocalypse story and it is not. It is a funny, sad tale about sibling relationships, growing up to be
Love is where you find it. I think it is foolish to go around looking for it, and I think it can be poisonous. I wish that people who are conventionally supposed to love each other would say to each other, when they fight, 'Please — a little less love, and a little more common decency'.
Today's haul. I'm grounded from buying books for the rest of the month!
During a recent trip to the Kurt Vonnegut Memorial Library, I got into a conversation with the curator. He said that you can gauge a Vonnegut fan based on their reaction to "Slapstick" and I agree. Trashed by critics and considered one of his lesser novels, I love this weird, silly book. Vonnegut's introduction alone is worth the price of admission. #Recommendsday
Went for a walk at lunch to clear my head and just happened to walk by a bookshop. Have always been a sucker for unusual covers and Vintage have reissued a series of dystopian novels
pickThis was a re-read for me. This is the closest you could possibly come to literary slapstick humour, with Vonnegut's blend of philosophy, science & human vulgarity. Not the best Vonnegut & def not the place to start with his work, but I still love it
