Invention based on Ice Nine?

Michael Sykes, a builder from North Carolina, has created a novel energy-saving invention, "Enertia." He says that his creation is based in part on Mr. Vonnegut's Ice Nine.

The principle at work is "phase change." Sykes has engineered a resin in the wood he builds with to change phase at 70 degrees F. As the resin goes from liquid to solid and back to liquid again at room temperature, it allows the walls to soak up and trap vast amounts of heat during the day, cooling the room, while at night the resin releases the heat to warm the home.

You can see him being interviewed about his invention on "Science Friday" and you can learn more about "Enertia" here.

You can make your own Earth-friendly statment by ordering Mr. Vonnegut's "Confetti #52." You can learn more about it on our Confetti Prints Pages.

Look at the Birdie: Unpublished Short Fiction

Look at the Birdie: Unpublished Short Fiction

Hardcover: 272 pages
Publisher: Delacorte Press (October 20, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 038534371X
ISBN-13: 978-0385343718

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Dave Eggers wrote a review of the book for the New York Times Sunday Book Review. Titled "One for the Good Guys," you can read it in its entirety here.

EVOLUTIONARY MYTHOLOGY IN THE WRITINGS OF KURT VONNEGUT: Darwin,Vonnegut and the Construction of an American Culture

Academica Press 9781933146-99-7

Release date: 09/15/2010

This research monograph is an important contribution to the study of the author, Kurt Vonnegut and the great evolutionary scientist Charles Darwin. The book examines Darwin’s influence on the American culture that were Vonnegut's major focus and interest and the source of his importance as a major American writer of the later half of the 20th century.

This book is relevant in its attempt to understand, in Vonnegut’s novels, how Darwin’s theory of evolution functions as a cosmogonic myth that is widely accepted in order to explain why the world is as it is and why things happen as they do, to provide a rationale for social customs and observances, and to establish the sanctions for the rules by which Vonnegut’s characters conduct their lives. Moreover, this book deals with how and why Kurt Vonnegut’s fiction represents the changing human image resulting from Darwinism. The author discovered and developed his literary theory of “Evolution as a Mythology” from the novel Galápagos (Kurt Vonnegut,1985). McInnis persuasively developed theory suggests changes to the American (and English) literary landscape with a new and dynamic way to interpret literature, something the literary field has not seen since since Jean-Francois Lyotard described his ideas on narrative in his essay, the “Postmodern Condition,” published in Critique: Studies in Contemporary Fiction in the early 1980’s.

The Table of Contents includes:

Acknowledgments
Preface
Introduction
1. Darwinism, Social Darwinism, and Mythology
2. Mythology and Darwin’s Theory of Natural Selection in Galapagos
3. The Principles of the Evolutionary Mythology in Galapagos
4. The Sirens of Titan: Darwin, Einstein, and the Cosmological Connection
5. The Sirens of Titan: Quantum Mechanics, Einstein, and the In-Complete Story
6. Slaughterhouse-Five: Einstein, Natural Selection, and the Unified Story
7. Nazi Mythology and Totalitarian Minds in Mother Night
8. Adapting to the Evolutionary Mythology in Mother Night
9. The Mythology of the Consumer Society in Breakfast of Champions
10. Evolutionary Mythology in the Writings of Kurt Vonnegut
Bibliography
Index

New Editions

Random House is redesigning Mr. Vonnegut's book covers over the next year and a half to make a uniform edition using his artwork on all the covers. Here's a few of them...

Slaughterhouse-Five

Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback; Reissue edition (January 12, 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0385333846
ISBN-13: 978-0385333849

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Mother Night

Paperback: 288 pages
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback; Reissue edition (May 11, 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0385334141
ISBN-13: 978-0385334143

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Galapagos

Paperback: 336 pages
Publisher: Dial Press Trade Paperback; Reissue edition (January 12, 1999)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0385333870
ISBN-13: 978-0385333870

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Love as Always, Kurt

Love as Always, Kurt
Vonnegut as I Knew Him

by Loree Rackstraw

A memoir from a lifelong friend of Kurt Vonnegut including never-before-published correspondence, Love as Always, Kurt, is a chronological narrative about Vonnegut, stemming from his forty-year friendship with Rackstraw which began in 1966, when she was a graduate student in his fiction writing class at the Iowa Writers Workshop. What started as a brief love affair between the then-unknown author and his student soon matured into a joyful, lifelong friendship and in the book, Rackstraw distills four decades of her memories and Vonnegut's letters.

Based on their long correspondence and reunions, Love as Always, Kurt includes reflections on how family, politics, war, personal events and crises influenced Vonnegut's psyche, values, actions, and writing. Rackstraw provides compelling insight revealing little-known details about Vonnegut's life and his creative processmaking this an intimate behind-the-scene portrait.

Rackstraw portrays a deeply humane man who looked for the humor and absurdity in life in order to survive. She recounts conversations with Vonnegut as he struggled to remember his experiences of the Dresden firebombing, which eventually became Slaughterhouse-Five, and she narrates real-life moments that inspired his fictional works: a scene between Rackstraw and Vonnegut as they wander farmhouse ruins in Stone City, Iowa echoes in the epiphany of Slapstick, when brother and sister discover their spectacular single intelligence.

Readers will also glimpse other American literary notables in Rackstraw's stories, like Richard Yates, Nelson Algren, Andre Dubus, John Irving, and Truman Capote.

Loree Rackstraw is Professor Emeritus at the University of Northern Iowa. A former fiction editor of The North American Review, Rackstraw holds degrees from Grinnell College and the University of Iowa. She lives in Cedar Falls, Iowa.

Buy Love as Always, Kurt: Vonnegut as I Knew Him at Amazon

Cat's Cradle in the UK

Since it began life in Cornwall in 1979, Miracle Theatre Company has developed a reputation for exciting new writing and popular adaptations of classic works: the shows are witty, highly physical and entertaining. Miracle's winter show is back this season with an unusual treat: the first UK stage adaptation of Kurt Vonnegut’s cult classic Cat's Cradle.

The atomic bomb was not Dr Felix Hoenikker’s most devastating creation. When the top secret formula: ice-nine falls into the hands of his three dysfunctional children, a series of hilarious and improbable events lead to a rather low-key Armageddon! Just like Miracle Theatre, Vonnegut explored serious themes through laughter. This classic satire on modern science, full of bizarre but all-too-human characters, is a perfect vehicle for Miracle’s blend of physical theatre, comedy, film and music.

The Clown of Armageddon: The Novels of Kurt Vonnegut

Peter Freese
The Clown of Armageddon: The Novels of Kurt Vonnegut
Heidelberg: Universitaetsverlag Winter, 2009
ISBN 978-3-8253-5551-7
769 pp.; €88.00

The unique career of Kurt Vonnegut (1922 – 2007), America’s first major writer to have begun his career in the paperback industry, spanned more than half a century and made him “the representative post-World War II American writer” (Morse). Between Player Piano (1952), his prophetic depiction of tyranny by computer in the form of a more conventional dystopian novel, and Timequake (1997), his story of a book that refused to be written, in a previously unheard-of mixture of fiction and autobiography, Vonnegut published fourteen highly accomplished novels, at least one of which, his daringly innovative ‘breakthrough novel’ Slaughterhouse-Five (1969), has become a widely admired modern classic.

This study opens with an account of Vonnegut’s development from a neglected hack writer to an international celebrity and a brief history of the controversial reception given to a novelist whose inimitable technique combines a willfully naïve style that appeals to less sophisticated readers and cutting-edge experiments that fascinate connoisseurs of metafictional experimentation. It then devotes a self-contained chapter to all of his fourteen novels, tracing their reception by critics and reviewers, explaining how each one is related to the others by recurring characters and settings as well as by the themes and motifs that haunt Vonnegut’s fictional cosmos, and combining all textual aspects and the findings of previous Vonnegut scholarship into a close reading of each novel as an accomplished piece of literary art in its own right.

Providing the most detailed reading of Kurt Vonnegut’s novels yet published, this study confirms his status as one of the outstanding representatives of post-World War II American fiction.

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A Note From Mark Vonnegut

In accord with Kurt's wishes, a brief memorial service attended by family and close friends was held on Saturday, April 21, 2007 at the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan.  An impromptu jazz group played traditional New Orleans music and guests sang along on "I'll Fly Away," "Down by the Riverside," and "Amazing Grace."

There was a lot of laughing and crying.  Prior to the service, dirt from his garden was deposited at The New York Public Library, the Chrysler Building, Grand Central Station, Times Square, and three places in Central Park -- the statue of Balto, the Avenue of Literature, and the Dairy Building.

We're all a little puzzled about what to do next but we'll think of something.

Mark Vonnegut
May 7, 2007

A Note From Nanny Vonnegut

Dear Fans of my Dad,

Over the years you have given my father the gift of unconditional love in return for all the great joy he clearly brought to you through his writing and his art.  For that gift, the greatest one there is, I thank you from the bottom of my heart.  I am so sorry for your loss as well as mine. 

Nanny Vonnegut
June 1, 2007

A Note From Edie Vonnegut

I never expected Kurt to actually die. He was supposed to break the code and live forever. I’m pretty disillusioned right now. When I was very young, like 12, I went to his study to ask him for answers to this world. He said he didn’t know any more than I did and that he was experiencing everything I was at the very same time. I think it was during the Cuban missile crisis and I was scared. He said he didn’t have a clue. From there on out I regarded him as a fellow clueless comrade who had no extra advantage or wisdom above me. He pulled no rank as ‘Father’ and for that I am eternally grateful. 

Though he was the smartest man I ever met and I am rather limited.

Even so he made me feel equal at a very early age and taught me to question authority where ever I found it.

Thank you everyone out there for getting him and loving him and missing him.

Edie Vonnegut

A Note From Joe Petro III

Thank you for your notes of support and sympathy.  Kurt will be greatly missed, by his admirers, by his friends, by his family.  Over the years, the employees of Origami Express (that would be Kurt and I) talked about how Kurt's artworks and books would live on after him.  So Origami Express will continue to preserve Kurt's art presence by cataloguing and posting his original prints, including releasing never-before-seen editions.  

And to my friend Kurt, thanks for the dance.

Joe Petro III
May 7, 2007

A Note From Donald C. Farber

I'm the guy who attended to all of Kurt's business. I'm the guy who got all of his fan mail, including the offers of marriage and the avowals of every loving devotion. 

Every experience with Kurt was one that always left me feeling good even when he was not happy with the injustices he envisioned in the world around him.  Kurt was a profound thinker, a truly sensitive, caring person who empathized with all people, without any consideration of their station in life or where they hailed from. 

His life and work are an inspiration to all of us.  He always left me laughing and now he has left me crying.

Donald C. Farber
May 7, 2007

Buy It Here

View Mr. Vonnegut's "Confetti" prints — as seen in his books, "A Man without a Country" and "Armageddon in Retrospect" — by clicking here.

Armageddon in Retrospect
by Kurt Vonnegut

The first and only collection of unpublished works by Kurt Vonnegut since his death — a fitting tribute to the author, and an essential contribution to the discussion of war, peace, and humanity’s tendency toward violence.

Armageddon in Retrospect is a collection of twelve new and unpublished writings on war and peace. Imbued with Vonnegut’s trademark rueful humor, the pieces range from a visceral nonfiction recollection of the destruction of Dresden during World War II — an essay that is as timely today as it was then — to a painfully funny short story about three Army privates and their fantasies of the perfect first meal upon returning home from war, to a darker, more poignant story about the impossibility of shielding our children from the temptations of violence. Also included are Vonnegut’s last speech as well as an assortment of his artwork, and an introduction by the author’s son, Mark Vonnegut.

Hardcover: 240 pages
Publisher: Putnam Adult (April 1, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0399155082
ISBN-13:978-0399155086

GelaSkins

Mr. Vonnegut's art is now featured on GelaSkins. Gelaskins provide a way to express your style and personality through your iPod, while keeping it protected from scratches and daily abuse.

GelaSkins are very thin (< 2mm), protective iPod covers made with premium grade 3M vinyl and adhesive technology. Patented micro-channels in the adhesive prevent bubbles from forming during application. They are crafted using the same process and materials used in the automotive customization industry. An ultra-clear, scratch resistant, glossy coating is then applied to the GelaSkin for added durability and a photo quality finish.

Find out more here.