The April 2022 Reading List

 

As I mentioned before, after two months of reading strictly time travel novels, I decided that for April, I'd head off in a different direction. I wanted to read non-time travel books by some of the writers who had made my time travel list. For the most part, I've stuck with that.

There are two exceptions, however.

After having read an article at CNN.com on a report of Harvard University's legacy of slavery since it's founding in 1636, I wanted to read the actual report. A link to the report as a pdf is below. The pdf is 134 pages. I'm counting that as a "book". That report led me to the Booker T. Washington "book" - also linked to below. Next month, I will follow up on this theme with something by W.E.B. Du Bois (to be determined later).

I've reviewed 6 of the books (not including the Washington or Harvard works) and links to those reviews are given below as well.

Declare                                         by Tim Powers
Fledgling                                      by Octavia Butler
God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater     by Kurt Vonnegut
The War of the Worlds                  by H.G.Wells
The Massacre of Mankind            by Stephen Baxter
The Story of Slavery                      by Booker T. Washington
Harvard & the Legacy of Slavery
Her Fearful Symmetry                  by Audrey Niffenegger

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater

Going back to the list of writers I included in my recent time travel adventures but who are also writers of non-time travel novels, I come to Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater. Having read Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five during my time travel phase, this book was the obvious choice. Two characters from Slaughterhouse-Five - Kilgore Trout and Eliot Rosewater - made their first appearance in the 1965 novel.

I had been a Kurt Vonnegut fan in my teen years and had, of course read God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater ages and ages ago. Like all of the Vonnegut novels I read in my teen years, most of the Rosewater book had faded from my memory. Pretty much the only thing I can recall from that early reading is the mentioning of Kilgore Trout's paperback, Venus on the Half-Shell . In later years (1974) Philip José Farmer wrote a novel of the same name - using the pseudonym Kilgore Trout. There was a bit of a kerfuffle over Farmer's book. Vonnegut reluctantly gave permission to Farmer to write the book, although later Vonnegut was angry over a poorly written article concerning Farmer's getting Vonnegut's permission. The article was probably as badly written as the previous sentence.

As a side note - when I read Venus on the Half-Shell in 1975, I was like many who mistakenly assumed that the book was Vonnegut's own creation.

God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater is humorous - though hardly a knee slapper. I appreciate Vonnegut's writing now with a bit of nostalgia. I don't know, however, if I'd like Vonnegut nearly as much if I were only now discovering his work.

Slaughterhouse-Five

Of the books listed in the 23 Best Time Travel Science Fiction Books, Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut is one of the only three books I'd read prior to coming upon the list. It's been more than 50 years since I first read the book and most of the details I remember from that early reading are probably actually memories from the 1972 film.

When I read the novel as a teenager, Vonnegut was my favorite writer - he's no longer that, but I've come upon quite a few more great writers since my teen years so that change of opinion is to be expected. Still, Slaughterhouse-Five rates very high in my view of the time travel books I've read recently.

Of the 18 time travel books I've read since the first of February, there are three which are in a very close tie for first place - To Say Nothing of The Dog ,The Time Traveler's Wife and now Slaughterhouse-Five . My only objection to Slaughterhouse-Five is Vonnegut's over-use of the phrase "So it goes" when a death is mentioned in the novel.Otherwise, it's certainly worth a read (or reread).