Obvs this isn't a comprehensive list, but I picked my top 10 as best as I could.

I love Breakfast of Champions. I remember having to read an excerpt in high-school and immediately wanting to read the whole book through. The premise of explaining the most banal aspects of mid 20th century America to an extraterrestrial or child with uncanny language skills seemed so brilliant at the time - similar to Richard Feynman's BBC talk where he explains the flaws and assumptions that go into asking "why?" of a particular topic.

The pathos present in other Vonnegut books is present here, albeit with a bleaker outlook than his others, I really enjoy the complete lack of the exotic in telling the truth about America and Americans in the 1970s, and overall. He breaks the fourth wall here really well, and the interrelationships between characters and their histories is compelling.

Geiginni wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 12:15 pm
The pathos present in other Vonnegut books is present here, albeit with a bleaker outlook than his others,

I'd say Mother Night is pretty damn bleak; an almost abject resignation to an externally designed fate with a tragic shrug of an ending. I take your point, though.

kicker_of_elves wrote:

Geiginni wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 12:15 pm
The pathos present in other Vonnegut books is present here, albeit with a bleaker outlook than his others,

I'd say Mother Night is pretty damn bleak; an almost abject resignation to an externally designed fate with a tragic shrug of an ending. I take your point, though.

Mother Night is extremely bleak, and also a more straightforward narrative of the story without the quirkiness of some of his other stories (Slapstick, for example. Christ on a crutch - what an odd narrative arc that takes), that make Vonnegut so enjoyable in the first place.

Geiginni wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 12:32 pm

kicker_of_elves wrote:

Geiginni wrote: Mon Jul 26, 2021 12:15 pm
The pathos present in other Vonnegut books is present here, albeit with a bleaker outlook than his others,

I'd say Mother Night is pretty damn bleak; an almost abject resignation to an externally designed fate with a tragic shrug of an ending. I take your point, though.

Mother Night is extremely bleak, and also a more straightforward narrative of the story without the quirkiness of some of his other stories (Slapstick, for example. Christ on a crutch - what an odd narrative arc that takes), that make Vonnegut so enjoyable in the first place.

Or having spent years marooned in a cave, only to discover your spaceship was upside down.

Mother Night is my favorite. I also really love Cats Cradle. The movie of Mother Night staring Americas Sweetheart Nick Nolte is really not too bad at all, considering how off the rails as a KV Jr. film adaptations can get.

Always had a soft spot for Breakfast of Champions, (why does a car dealership seem to be the most apt place for mental breakdowns - see Fargo, Gloria from the Sopranos, etc) though I tend to recommend Slaughterhouse-Five to first-timers.

Hadn’t thought about that car dealership motif. That’s funny.

Cat's Cradle. A near perfect distillation of despair and hopelessness. Always puts me in a great mood. Seriously.

Slaughterhouse-Five is one of my favorite works of fiction, but the rest of Vonnegut's work that I've read (minus Palm Sunday) kind of blurs together, I couldn't give you a plot synopsis for any of them.