Bagombo Snuff Box: Summary and book reviews of Bagombo Snuff Box by Kurt Vonnegut, plus links to an excerpt from Bagombo Snuff Box and a biography of Kurt Vonnegut.
Bagombo Snuff Box Uncollected Short Fiction
by Kurt Vonnegut
Hardcover: Aug 1999,
295 pages.
Paperback: Aug 2000,
384 pages.
Before the Golden Age of magazines drew to a close half a century ago--soon to be beaten at the entertainment game by the new little boxes with moving images that were finding their way into the homes of more and more Americans--a young PR man at General Electric sold his first short story to one of the doomed publications. By the time he'd sold his third, he decided to quit GE and join the likes of Hemingway and Fitzgerald and Faulkner, and try to make a living at fifteen hundred dollars a pop. With four major magazines running five stories each week and smaller ones scouting as well, it was a seller's market, and Kurt Vonnegut was delighted - and comfortable - being published regularly by The Saturday Evening Post, Collier's, Argosy, and others.
For this unusual collection, Vonnegut has selected twenty-four of his favorite stories never published before in book form and has written a new preface for the occasion. Vonnegut scholar Peter Reed, who unearthed the old publications, contributes an introduction.
Now readers can relive the genesis of a master. Stories such as "Any Reasonable Offer," "The Powder Blue Dragon," "Hal Irwin's Magic Lamp," and "Lovers Anonymous" bring us to the beginning of a literary voice that is sure to last forever. Bagombo Snuff Box, the missing pieces of the master's oeuvre, is a ready-made classic for Vonnegut fans new and old.
Library Journal
Vonnegut goes back to his roots - the short stories he first wrote for the Saturday Evening Post et al - to pick 24 stories never collected in book form.
Booklist
Vonnegut said that his last book, Timequake (1997), would be his last, but no one as imaginative and in love with language and story can resist the lure of the page, and it's obvious that he had a grand time working on this collection of his vintage stories.
Esquire
.... has fun written all over it...
Recent Reader Reviews
Rated of 5
by Bradley
I'm a big fan of Vonnegut and enjoyed this collection. Having said that though, I think it's obvious that this was the work of a writer in his infancy; and certinly it's nowhere near the standard of his later writings. I'd recomend this to a fellow... Read More
Rated of 5
by sapphira h
this is a very interesting and great book. if you read it i think you would enjoy it very much
Review (not rated)
by Amber D Anne - 6/12/04
Kurt Vonnegut appearing in Chicago area! 6/20/04
Hi, don't want to "crash" the board, but trying to make certain that Vonnegut fans know about this upcoming appearance! Read More
Rated of 5
by Dover
even the introduction is incredible.
Rated of 5
by lovetoread
It's Vonnegut. He's fantastic. The stories are fantastic.
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Stranger than fiction, blending tragedy and farce, How to Create the Perfect Wife is an engrossing tale of the radicalism, and deep contradictions, at the heart of the Enlightenment.
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Although heavy on the scientific details, which slowed down the story for me (OK, I admit, I was one of those liberal arts majors who skipped out on...
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Loved this book. Magical, quirky, enchanting I could go on. All books do not have to be literary fiction, sometimes it is just so comforting to read...
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