Cat's Cradle

Title: Cat's Cradle
Author: Kurt Vonnegut
Published: 1963
Genre: Satire
Pages: 304


One of the first books I bought for the Kindle, and finally got around to it! Much like with Slaughterhouse 5, I started reading with the intention of just a few pages, and ended up reading about a fifth of the book at once.

Our narrator has set out to write a book about one of the fathers of the atomic bomb, Felix Hoenikker, and what people were doing the day the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. He travels to the Hoenikker hometown to interview people, and learns of the theoretical, he is assured, substance of ice-nine, Hoenikker's invention that could change how war is fought and even destroy the whole world. Good thing it's not real, right? Just theoretical.

There's also the religious movement Bokononism, of which our narrator quotes often. How he stumbles upon it, you have to read for yourself. The pages and chapters just fly, and Cat's Cradle is just fun even when things start to get weird.


   All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies.