Three Complete Novels: Cat's Cradle / God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater / Breakfast of Champions

by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

Kurt Three Complete Cat's Cradle; God Bless You Mr. Rosewater; Breakfast of Champions.

Genres: Fiction, Science Fiction, Classics, Literature

527 pages, cloth

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Kurt Vonnegut, Junior was an American novelist, satirist, and most recently, graphic artist. He was recognized as New York State Author for 2001-2003.

He was born in Indianapolis, later the setting for many of his novels. He attended Cornell University from 1941 to 1943, where he wrote a column for the student newspaper, the Cornell Daily Sun. Vonnegut trained as a chemist and worked as a journalist before joining the U.S. Army and serving in World War II.

After the war, he attended University of Chicago as a graduate student in anthropology and also worked as a police reporter at the City News Bureau of Chicago. He left Chicago to work in Schenectady, New York in public relations for General Electric. He attributed his unadorned writing style to his reporting work.

His experiences as an advance scout in the Battle of the Bulge, and in particular his witnessing of the bombing of Dresden, Germany whilst a prisoner of war, would inform much of his work. This event would also form the core of his most famous work, Slaughterhouse-Five, the book which would make him a millionaire. This acerbic 200-page book is what most people mean when they describe a work as "Vonnegutian" in scope.

Vonnegut was a self-proclaimed humanist and socialist (influenced by the style of Indiana's own Eugene V. Debs) and a lifelong supporter of the American Civil Liberties Union.

The novelist is known for works blending satire, black comedy and science fiction, such as Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), Cat's Cradle (1963), and Breakfast of Champions (1973)

Reviews

[KyliH]

I still press my feet against others when I want to feel close...

[Chris Schneider]

Re-read after several years, which in itself is a great endorsement since I rarely revisit a novel. This book remains pertinent, hopefully not prescient, as people celebrate the achievements of Oppenheimer in the theater.

I believe my favorite but most cynical part is the ending, proving that the will to go on heroically is only inherent in Hollywood movies.

[Johntartaglia]

Page 2 of Breakfast of Champions says it all

[Dave]

Breakfast of Champions (the last in this 3-novel set): "Bitterly funny." Both of those things, separately, but in a blend that is so different from the first of the set, "Cat's Cradle" -- which was wild, wacky, and inventive but also posed "desperate problems" when you take the conflicts in it seriously. But the treatment in "...Cradle" was much lighter than in "...Champions" -- which can occasionally be a tough read, a more direct and obvious book with a much blacker viewpoint to most parts of it.

[Shonda]

Vonnegut wrote Breakfast of Champions for himself as a 50th birthday present. What an incredible gift.

[Joel]

This book sounds to be one the best novels vonnegurt has written

[claire]

I'm only reading the cat's cradle. Can't find just that book on this site

[Beth]

another great one!!

[Nick Black]

I reviewed the individual books. This is the edition I own them in, though.

[Carl]

My favorite Vonnegut. This is a masterpiece.

[Mike]

I like the shorter chapters, it makes it more of a casual read. Contains all of Vonnegut's randomness.