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Welcome to the Monkey House is a collection of Kurt Vonnegut’s shorter works. Originally printed in publications as diverse as The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction and The Atlantic Monthly, these superb stories share Vonnegut’s audacious sense of humor and extraordinary range of creative vision.Alternative cover edition here 

1968 collection of short stories by Kurt Vonnegut

"It began as a mistake." By middle age, Henry Chinaski has lost more than twelve years of his life to the U.S. Postal Service. In a world where his three true, bitter pleasures are women, booze, and racetrack betting, he somehow drags his hangover out of bed every dawn to lug waterlogged mailbags up mud-soaked mountains, outsmart vicious guard dogs, and pray to survive the day-to-day trials of sadistic bosses and certifiable coworkers.This classic 1971 novel--the one that catapulted its author to national fame--is the perfect introduction to the grimly hysterical world of legendary writer, poet, and Dirty Old Man Charles Bukowski and his fictional alter ego, Chinaski.

Written in 1914 but not published until 1925, a year after Kafka’s death, The Trial is the terrifying tale of Josef K., a respectable bank officer who is suddenly and inexplicably arrested and must defend himself against a charge about which he can get no information. Whether read as an existential tale, a parable, or a prophecy of the excesses of modern bureaucracy wedded to the madness of totalitarianism, The Trial has resonated with chilling truth for generations of readers.

Pulp (novel), Charles BukowskiPulp is the last completed novel by Los Angeles poet and writer Charles Bukowski. It was published in 1994, shortly before Bukowski's death. Pulp is a pulp fiction novel which acts also as a meta-pulp. Pulp comments on the obsessions of the pulp fiction genre, making fun of itself as stereotypical of the genre in the grimiest form. Bukowski dedicates the story to "bad writing", as Bukowski did not plan his mystery novel well and frequently wrote Nicky Belane into holes from which he could not escape. Bukowski wrote some of his most violent, cynical, sarcastic, and shocking work during the final months of his life. Many critics have agreed this novel exemplifies Bukowski showing an acceptance of his own pending mortality.تاریخ نخستین خوانش: روز بیستم ماه ژوئن سال 2010 میلادیعنوان: عامه‌ پسند؛ نویسنده: چارلز بوکوفسکی؛ مترجم: پیمان خاکسار؛ مشخصات نشر: تهران، نشر چشمه، 1388، در 198 ص، شابک: 9789643625726؛ چاپ سوم 1389؛ چاپ پنجم 1390؛ چاپ ششم 1393؛ موضوع: داستانهای نویسندگان امریکایی - سده 20 معنوان: عامه‌ پسند؛ نویسنده: چارلز بوکوفسکی؛ مترجم: محمدصادق سبط الشیخ؛ مشخصات نشر: تهران، چلچله، 1394، در 332 ص،؛ شابک: 9789646553835؛ کتابنامه داردراوی داستان، نیکی بلان - کارآگاه خصوصی - ست؛ که سعی می‌کند در مورد نویسنده کلاسیک فرانسوی سلین و گنجشک قرمز تحقیق کند. کنکاش نیکی بلان، او را گام به گام در زندگی سطح پایین شهری فرومی‌برد؛ چیزی که در دیگر نوشته‌ های بوکوفسکی نیز موضوعی طبیعی است. کتاب با دارا بودن رگه‌ هایی از نوشته‌ های علمی تخیلی، و فوق طبیعی، توسط خود بوکوفسکی به «بد نوشتن» تقدیم شده‌ است. ا. شربیانی

In what is widely hailed as the best of his many novels, Charles Bukowski details the long, lonely years of his own hardscrabble youth in the raw voice of alter ego Henry Chinaski. From a harrowingly cheerless childhood in Germany through acne-riddled high school years and his adolescent discoveries of alcohol, women, and the Los Angeles Public Library's collection of D. H. Lawrence, "Ham on Rye" offers a crude, brutal, and savagely funny portrait of an outcast's coming-of-age during the desperate days of the Great Depression.

The book is structured as a series of loosely connected vignettes. Burroughs stated that the chapters are intended to be read in any order. The reader follows the narration of junkie William Lee, who takes on various aliases, from the U.S. to Mexico, eventually to Tangier and the dreamlike Interzone.The vignettes are drawn from Burroughs' own experiences in these places and his addiction to drugs (heroin, morphine, and while in Tangier, majoun [a strong hashish confection] as well as a German opioid, brand name Eukodol, of which he wrote frequently).[source wiki}

Before his 1959 breakthrough, Naked Lunch, an unknown William S. Burroughs wrote Junky, his first novel. It is a candid eye-witness account of times and places that are now long gone, an unvarnished field report from the American post-war underground. Unafraid to portray himself in 1953 as a confirmed member of two socially-despised under classes (a narcotics addict and a homosexual), Burroughs was writing as a trained anthropologist when he unapologetically described a way of life - in New York, New Orleans, and Mexico City - that by the 1940's was already demonized by the artificial anti-drug hysteria of an opportunistic bureaucracy and a cynical, prostrate media. For this fiftieth-anniversary edition, eminent Burroughs scholar Oliver Harris has painstakingly recreated the author's original text, word by word, from archival typescripts and places the book's contents against a lively historical background in a comprehensive introduction. Here as well, for the first time, are Burroughs' own unpublished introduction and an entire omitted chapter, along with many "lost" passages, as well as auxiliary texts by Allen Ginsberg and others.

2.5 starsClassic British noir; properly titled Jack's Return Home. I understand why the film version is Get Carter; much snappier. It was written in 1970 and is actually set in Scunthorpe; my hometown, which is why I read it (the blurb is wrong, it's not Doncaster, Jack just changed trains there). The plot is fairly similar to the film, with a few variations. It is very much a book of its time and some of the dialogue is a little obscure ("she was a bit Harrison Marks"; I had to look that one up).The geography is a little out at times; some of the road names were accurate others not; but it wasn't far out. The descriptions of the steelworkers pubs was accurate and the casual violence of the area is true to life. The arrival of immigrants from the Indian subcontinent is depicted, along with the tensions created in the local community. The language is very strong, the women are there as sexual objects or as victims of casual violence. Now I reflect on it, the treatment of all of the female characters is brutal. Carter is an anti-hero; the only reason he is creating havoc is because it is his neice who has been exploited. If it had been someone else's he would not have been bothered. He is a cog in the wheel and ultimately stands no chance of winning. The faults outweighed the nostalgia, but I had to read it; there aren't many novels set in Scunthorpe!!

Detroit businessman Harry Mitchell is a self-made man, happily married for over twenty-two years and a pillar of the community. But then he slips--he meets a young "model" and begins an affair. One night he arrives at his girlfriend's apartment and finds more than he bargained for. Two masked men have caught his misdemeanors on camera and now they want a cool hundred grand. But they've picked the wrong man, because Harry Mitchell doesn't get mad--he gets even.

There are some terrible reviews of SH5 floating around Goodreads, but one particularly awful sentiment is that Slaughterhouse-Five isn't anti-war.This is usually based on the following quote. "It had to be done," Rumfoord told Billy, speaking of the destruction of Dresden."I know," said Billy."That's war.""I know. I'm not complaining""It must have been hell on the ground.""It was," said Billy Pilgrim."Pity the men who had to do it.""I do.""You must have had mixed feelings, there on the ground.""It was all right," said Billy. "Everything is all right, and everybody has to do exactly what he does. I learned that on Tralfamadore."For context, Mr. Rumfoord is an old military historian described as "hateful and cruel" who wants to see weaklings like Billy exterminated.On Tralfamadore, Billy was introduced to the revelation that all things happen exactly as they do, and that they will always happen that way, and that they will never happen any other way. Meaning, time is all at once. The aliens, incidentally, admit to destroying the universe in a comical accident fated far into the future, and they're very sorry, but so it goes. &lt;- passive acceptanceThe entire story up to this point has been about Billy, buffeted like a powerless pathetic leaf in a storm, pushed this way and that by forces entirely outside his tiny purview. He lays catatonically in a hospital bed after the plane crash and the death of his wife, and all the time traveling back and forth from Dresden where toddlers and families and old grannies and anti-war civilians were burned alive in a carefully organized inferno (so it goes), and Billy is about ready to agree to absolutely anything. It can't be prevented. It can't be helped.You're powerless, after a while. What hope have we, or anyone caught in the middle of a war, or even the poor soldiers who are nothing but pawns and children (hence the children's crusade), to influence these gigantic, global events? Therefore, Billy agrees with the hateful, the cruel Mr. Rumfoord, who is revising his military history of WWII, having previously forgotten to mention the Dresden bombing. Women and children, not evaporated instantly, but melted slowly by chemicals and liquid flame, their leftovers, according to Billy, lying in the street like blackened logs, or in piles of families who died together in their little homes. Incidentally, how can anything be pro-war or anti-war? Because being anti-war is a bit like being anti-conflict, anti-death, and anti-suffering. Is there a book that's pro these things? Is there a book that touches on the subject of war and is not against it?We don't support wars, though we are sometimes forced to accept them. Anyone who thinks that the bombing of Dresden was necessary is delusional.It's like saying, "yo, look how they bombed these innocents - that shit was wrong! Let's go bomb some innocents, too."That's the sad truth of it.

In Breakfast of Champions, one of Kurt Vonnegut’s  most beloved characters, the aging writer Kilgore Trout, finds to his horror that a Midwest car dealer is taking his fiction as truth. What follows is murderously funny satire, as Vonnegut looks at war, sex, racism, success, politics, and pollution in America and reminds us how to see the truth.

Librarian note: Alternate cover edition for this ISBN can be found here.Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense. American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as a Nazi war criminal. But is he really guilty? In this brilliant book rife with true gallows humor, Vonnegut turns black and white into a chilling shade of gray with a verdict that will haunt us all.

novel by Kurt Vonnegut; fictional memoirs of a Howard W. Campbell Jr., an American who moved to Germany in 1923 at age 11, and later became a well-known playwright and Nazi propagandist

A teenage girl is found raped and murdered and a boy who was known to have sex with her is the prime suspect. The newspaper turns the case into a circus and the town turns against the boy? Did he do it? And will it even matter when the dust settles?This wasn't quite what I expected from old Mr. Happy, Jim Thompson. Yeah, it has the feel of a lot of Jim Thompson books in that all people are bastards but it wasn't quite as bleak as the others. Sure, the Talbert boy went through the wringer and his parents and the lawyers didn't have a picnic but the main characters got off kind of light.The thing that I really liked about The Criminal was the use of a variety of viewpoint characters. The Criminal is a pretty short book but Thompson used close to ten viewpoint characters and gave each a unique voice. While it didn't have the usual brutality of a Jim Thompson novel, The Criminal did a great job at showing Thompson's skill as a writer. I wouldn't say it's a top tier Thompson, it's shoulders above some of his weaker efforts. It's an easy three stars.

“David Goodis is the mystery man of hardboiled fiction.”—Geoffrey O’BrienIn Street of No Return, we meet the pathetic figure of Whitey. Once upon a time Whitey was a crooner with a million-dollar voice and a standing invitation from any woman who heard him use it. Until he had the bad luck to fall for Celia. And then nothing would ever be the same.In Street of No Return, David Goodis works the magic that made him one of the most distinctive voices in hard-boiled fiction, creating a claustrophobic universe in which wounded men and women collide with cataclysmic force.

A woman, a survivor of a failed murder attempt by a person dubbed "The Half-Moon Killer" by the police, and her husband must find the connecting thread between herself, six other women, and the killer before the killer strikes at her

A hitman finds himself embroiled in the middle of a Mafia war between the Sicilians and the Calabrians.

A former gangster is forced to resume his old lifestyle when his violent, jealous ex-colleagues and the police believe that he knows the location of a stolen cache of $300,000.

A Swedish arms dealer and a Mexican peon team up to rescue the intellectual leader of the Revolutionary cause, while taking part in numerous misadventures along the way.

A journalist finds himself on the trail of a murderer who's been targeting people around him, while the police are considering him a suspect in their investigation.

A young girl is brutally murdered somewhere in France. Sometime later, the same thing happens to the daughter of a well-known sculptor. This time the parents (the sculptor and his wife) start investigating, and soon find they are in 

A mystery novel-loving American tourist witnesses a murder in Rome, and soon finds herself and her suitor caught up in a series of killings.

A strict headmistress runs a secluded school for wayward girls in 19th century France, whose students are disappearing under mysterious circumstances.

A masked, shadowy killer brutally murders the models of a scandalous fashion house in Rome.

A string of appalling lust murders shocks the University of Perugia as a sadistic serial killer strangles to death beautiful college girls with a red and black scarf.

A woman returning home falls asleep and has vivid dreams that may or may not be happening in reality. Through repetitive images and complete mismatching of the objective view of time and space, her dark inner desires play out on-scre

Henry Spencer tries to survive his industrial environment, his angry girlfriend, and the unbearable screams of his newly born mutant child.

1977 surrealist body horror film written and directed by American filmmaker David Lynch

An ex-C.I.A. hit man running from his past (Malone) finds just how difficult it is to retire when he runs across a small town controlled by mercenaries and a family that's resisting their control.

A small town police chief awaits the arrival of a gang of killers.

A war veteran turned truck driver attempts to avenge the crippling and robbing of his father at the hands of an amoral produce scofflaw.

An embittered, vengeful POW stalks his former commanding officer who betrayed his men's planned escape attempt from a Nazi prison camp.

A major heist goes off as planned, but then double crosses, bad luck and solid police work cause everything to unravel.

An armored truck driver and his ex-wife conspire with a gang to have his own truck robbed on the route.

Det. Sgt. Mark Dixon wants to be something his old man wasn't: a guy on the right side of the law. Will Dixon's vicious nature get the better of him?

A secret fling between a man and his mistress leads to blackmail and murder.

Hasil Adkins was an American singer-songwriter and multi-instrumentalist. His genres include rock and roll, country, blues and more commonly rockabilly, and because of his unusual playing and singing style, he is often cited as an example of outsider music. He generally performed as a one-man band, playing guitar and drums at the same time.

Blind Willie Johnson (January 25, 1897 – September 18, 1945) was an American gospel blues singer, guitarist and evangelist. His landmark recordings completed between 1927 and 1930—thirty songs in total—display a combination of powerful "chest voice" singing, slide guitar skills, and originality that has influenced generations of musicians. Even though Johnson's records sold well, as a street performer and preacher, he had little wealth in his lifetime. His life was poorly documented, but over time, music historians such as Samuel Charters have uncovered more about Johnson and his five recording sessions.A revival of interest in Johnson's music began in the 1960s, following his inclusion on Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music, and by the efforts of the blues guitarist Reverend Gary Davis. Along with Davis, he has since been considered the dominant player of "holy blues" music, which conveyed religious themes in a blues idiom and often with the genre's style of guitar accompaniment.

American singer-songwriter, musician, actor, film producer, and boxer (1929-2000)

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