Lawyers & Criminals, Classics, Historical, Satire, Contemporary, Humorous 

A special fiftieth anniversary edition of Kurt Vonnegut's masterpiece, featuring a new foreword by Kevin Powers. An American classic, and one of the world's great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American POW. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber's son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming "unstuck in time."  

From the Publisher: Kurt Vonnegut's absurdist classic Slaughterhouse-Five introduces us to Billy Pilgrim, a man who becomes 'unstuck in time' after he is abducted by aliens from the planet Tralfamadore. In a plot-scrambling display of virtuosity, we follow Pilgrim simultaneously through all phases of his life, concentrating on his (and Vonnegut's) shattering experience as an American prisoner of war who witnesses the firebombing of Dresden. Slaughterhouse-Five is not only Vonnegut's most powerful book, it is also as important as any written since 1945. Like Catch-22, it fashions the author's experiences in the Second World War into an eloquent and deeply funny plea against butchery in the service of authority. Slaughterhouse-Five boasts the same imagination, humanity, and gleeful appreciation of the absurd found in Vonnegut's other works, but the book's basis in rock-hard, tragic fact gives it unique poignancy-and humor.  

Genre/Form: War stories
Fiction
Historical fiction
War fiction
Additional Physical Format: Online version:
Vonnegut, Kurt.
Slaughterhouse-five, or, The children's crusade.
New York, N.Y. : Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence, 1994
(OCoLC)607734095
Named Person: 1939-1945 World War
Material Type: Fiction, Internet resource
Document Type: Book, Internet Resource
All Authors / Contributors: Kurt Vonnegut
ISBN: 0385312083 9780385312080
OCLC Number: 965596290
Notes: "A fourth-generation German-American now living in easy circumstances on Cape Cod (and smoking too much), who, as an American infantry scout hors de combat, as a prisoner of war, witnessed the fire-bombing of Dresden, Germany, "The Florence of the Elbe," a long time ago, and survived to tell the tale. This is a novel somewhat in the telegraphic schizophrenic manner of tales of the planet Tralfamadore, where the flying saucers come from. Peace."
Description: xiii, 205 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm
Other Titles: Slaughterhouse-five.
Children's crusade.
Slaughterhouse-five
Slaughterhouse 5
Responsibility: by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.