2008-02-10 Excellent book, excellent writer

I had never even heard of Kurt Vonnegut until being stuck in a car during a road-trip across California with only an LA Times to read - which happened to have a 2-page feature on the author just after he died. A few weeks later I ordered one of his books on the off-chance it might be good, and in the months following then I have been devouring his body of work, and recommending his books to anyone with an interest in reading.

Hocus Pocus is possibly my favourite so far, although in saying that I have not read a bad one yet. As with all Vonnegut's books, this is filled with cynicism, pessimism, tragedy, distrust of authority, brutal honesty and cutting character assinations (of character types if not of real people). Yet for all that, the humour, invention and underlying humanity of the man means this is never a depressing read.