You don't see many Vonnegut's second hand (out of fashion, or stuck on people's shelves??) Anyway I grabbed this one from Oxfam, working my way slowly through his back catalogue :)

(10/08) Reserved for TimTheMed when i've finished, or before...

(08/06/10) *slight spoiler*

The blurb [Martin Amis] suggests, Vonnegut’s best novel since ‘Slaughterhouse 5’, which I agree with. Despite the whole improbable plot – which I will try to summarise later – it all makes sense to me!

The brilliant premise is that humans have evolved to a point where our brains are too big, causing most if not all of our woes, such as overcrowding, unproductive old age, the propensity to lie, make increasingly effective, i.e. devastating, weapons, and other such problems associated with unrestrained egos, and lack of an effective check-and-balance in the form of natural selection. C21st homo sapiens is not the fittest to survive, nor are we specialised and limited by the availability of natural resources (yet!)

For a number of reasons not fully explored the human population on earth is reduced to a handful of misfits marooned on one of the previously uninhabited Galapagos Islands having escaped ravaged Equador on the ‘Nature Cruise of the Century’. Of course the delicious irony is that the new humans evolve over a million years and follow Darwin’s great thesis to the letter. We become happier, smaller-brained seal-like fisherfolk…is such ‘natural selection in reverse’ possible, and why not? I suppose it depends on how one defines progress. Discuss.

Lastly, its good to see KV has given his alter ego Kilgore Trout, and son Leon Trotsky Trout, a special guest appearance, and so on :)

Passing on to DS...cos he asked for it. I think you will like this Joe, some interesting ideas and Vonnegut's quirky imagination :)

Enjoyed by said son, no ready to pass on to a Vonnegut fan, or someone new to his holy strangeness

I'm taking this along to this morning's Ipswich meet-up, to share or add to the bookshelf :)

Left on the windowsill at Cafe Nero.