Kurt Vonnegut: Letters

The collected letters of Kurt Vonnegut include some remarkable examples of epistolary eloquence… it is the tender letters to his youngest daughter, Nanette, that are the jewel of this collection

Jane Shilling, Sunday Telegraph Seven

A laughing prophet of doom

New York Times

Unimitative and inimitable social satirist

Harper's

A satirist with a heart, a moralist with a whoopee cushion, a cynic who wants to believe

Jay McInerney

Unique

Doris Lessing

Kurt Vonnegut never regarded himself as a great writer. But he did possess that undervalued gift of charm, of sociability. There are authors we admire or envy, but there are just a few we really, really love, and Vonnegut is one of them.

Washington Times

This miraculous volume of selected letters provides a moving and revelatory portrait of the famed author of Slaughterhouse-Five and Cat’s Cradle. . . . Fans will find the collection as spellbinding as Vonnegut’s best novels, and casual readers will discover letters as splendid in their own way as those of Keats.

Publisher's Weekly

[Reveals] Vonnegut’s passions, annoyances, loves, losses, mind and heart . . . The letters stand alone—and stand tall, indeed. . . . Vonnegut’s most human of hearts beats on every page

Kirkus Reviews

Splendidly assembled and edited by Dan Wakefield . . . [Vonnegut’s] familiar, funny, cranky, acute voice . . . is chronicling his life in real time.

New York Times Book Review

One closes this volume...full of gratitude for Dan Wakefield...the editor of this labour of love that gives us one more reason to love Kurt Vonnegut

John Sutherland, The Times

This collection is perhaps the best insight into the everyday needles of a prolific author you could hope to read

Ed Caesar, Sunday Times

A well-rounded collection of letters

James Campbell, Guardian

Droll and self-deprecating letters offer intriguing insights into Vonnegut’s life

Sunday Times

Splendidly assembled and edited

Kurt Andersen, Scotsman

[The letters] have a directness and a consistency, a scruffy but ensnaring humanity… Kurt seems by turns kind, engaged, imaginative, witty, self-deprecating ("I write with a big black crayon… grasped in a grubby, kindergarten fist,") and – on various fronts – courageous

Keith Miller, Daily Telegraph

Crisply edited... There was something fundamentally goodhearted about Vonnegut. For all his gloom and cantankerousness, he never entirely lost his faith in human nature.

John Preston, Spectator