Billy Pilgrim – hapless barber’s assistant, successful optometrist, alien abductee, senile widower and soldier – has become unstuck in time. Hiding in the basement of a slaughterhouse in Dresden, with the city and its inhabitants burning above him, he finds himself a survivor of one of the most deadly and destructive battles of the Second World War. But when, exactly? How did he get here? And how does he get out?

Travel through time and space on the shoulders of Vonnegut himself. This is a book about war. Listen to what he has to say: it is of the utmost urgency.

‘An extraordinary success. A book to read and reread. He is a true artist’ New York Times Book Review

This series of war novels from Vintage Classics presents eight powerful stories about the horror and waste of war – each a passionate plea to prevent its repetition.

In Player Piano, the first of Vonnegut’s wildly funny and deadly serious novels, automata have dramatically reduced the need for America’s work force. Ten years after the introduction of these robot labourers, the only people still working are the engineers and their managers, who live in Ilium; everyone else lives in Homestead, an impoverished part of town characterised by purposelessness and mass produced houses.

Paul Proteus is the manager of Ilium Works. While grateful to be held in high regard, Paul begins to feel uneasy about his position – especially after a trip to Homestead. Eventually, Paul makes the decision to rebel against all he’s been given, inciting seismic repercussions…

‘His black logic…gives us something to laugh about and much to fear’ New York Times Book Review

Watch the documentary about his life – Kurt Vonnegut: Unstuck in Time – on Prime

When Winston Niles Rumfoord flies his spaceship into a chrono-synclastic infundibulum he is converted into pure energy and only materializes when his waveforms intercept Earth or some other planet. As a result, he only gets home to Newport, Rhode Island, once every fifty-nine days and then only for an hour.

But at least, as a consolation, he now knows everything that has ever happened and everything that ever will be. He knows, for instance, that his wife is going to Mars to mate with Malachi Constant, the richest man in the world. He also knows that on Titan – one of Saturn’s moons – is an alien from the planet Tralfamadore, who has been waiting 200,000 years for a spare part for his grounded spacecraft . . .

Readers love The Sirens of Titan:

‘A truly exceptional work by a truly exceptional author expressing some exceptionally powerful ideas’ Goodreads reviewer, ? ? ? ? ?

‘Vonnegut uses the absurd to explore what makes us human . . . I recommend this book for any fan of Vonnegut or [Douglas] Adams’ Goodreads reviewer, ? ? ? ? ?

‘The Sirens of Titan is primarily a parody of trashy pulp science fiction novels, a boisterous, chucklesome book . . . In this sense, The Sirens of Titan, twenty years early, precedes and foreshadows (and, I would say, is superior to) Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’ Goodreads reviewer, ? ? ? ? ?

‘There are plenty of space travels in The Sirens of Titan but it isn’t a space opera . . . It is a spaced out satire, a cosmic comedy of manners‘ Goodreads reviewer, ? ? ? ? ?

‘I went into this expecting a science fiction/satire but instead I got an emotionally moving story about the meaning of life by none other than one of the greatest writers that ever lived. Period’ Goodreads reviewer, ? ? ? ? ?

‘Funny until it suddenly becomes creepy, to tell you why would be a spoiler though . . . Vonnegut is only using sci-fi as a platform to tell an allegorical story about life, together with an anti-war and anti-religion themes’ Goodreads reviewer, ? ? ? ? ?

‘This is not just one of Vonnegut’s best books. It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read’ Goodreads reviewer, ? ? ? ? ?

Billy Pilgrim – hapless barber’s assistant, successful optometrist, alien abductee, senile widower and soldier – has become unstuck in time. Hiding in the basement of a slaughterhouse in Dresden, with the city and its inhabitants burning above him, he finds himself a survivor of one of the most deadly and destructive battles of the Second World War. But when, exactly? How did he get here? And how does he get out?

Travel through time and space on the shoulders of Vonnegut himself. This is a book about war. Listen to what he has to say: it is of the utmost urgency.

‘The great, urgent, passionate American writer of our century, who offers us a model of the kind of compassionate thinking that might yet save us from ourselves.’ George Saunders