Cat’s Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut
For Kenneth Littquer,
a man of gallantry and taste.
Nothing in this book is true.
“Live by the foma* that makes you brave and kind and healthy and happy.”
—The Books of Bokonon. 1:5
* Harmless untruths
Contents
- The Day the World Ended
- Nice, Nice, Very Nice
- Folly
- A Tentative Tangling of Tendrils
- Letter from a Pre-med
- Bug Fights
- The Illustrious Hoenikkers
- Newt’s Thing with Zinka
- Vice-president in Charge of Volcanoes
- Secret Agent X-9
- Protein
- End of the World Delight
- The Jumping-off Place
- When Automobiles Had Cut-glass Vases
- Merry Christmas
- Back to Kindergarten
- The Girl Pool
- The Most Valuable Commodity on Earth
- No More Mud
- Ice-nine
- The Marines March On
- Member of the Yellow Press
- The Last Batch of Brownies
- What a Wampeter Is
- The Main Thing About Dr. Hoenikker
- What God Is
- Men from Mars
- Mayonnaise
- Gone, but Not Forgotten
- Only Sleeping
- Another Breed
- Dynamite Money
- An Ungrateful Man
- Vin-dit
- Hobby Shop
- Meow
- A Modern Major General
- Barracuda Capital of the World
- Fata Morgana
- House of Hope and Mercy
- A Karass Built for Two
- Bicycles for Afghanistan
- The Demonstrator
- Communist Sympathizers
- Why Americans Are Hated
- The Bokononist Method for Handling Caesar
- Dynamic Tension
- Just Like Saint Augustine
- A Fish Pitched Up by an Angry Sea
- A Nice Midget
- O.K., Mom
- No Pain
- The President of Fabri-Tek
- Communists, Nazis, Royalists, Parachutists, and Draft Dodgers
- Never Index Your Own Book
- A Self-supporting Squirrel Cage
- The Queasy Dream
- Tyranny with a Difference
- Fasten Your Seat Belts
- An Underprivileged Nation
- What a Corporal Was Worth
- Why Hazel Wasn’t Scared
- Reverent and Free
- Peace and Plenty
- A Good Time to Come to San Lorenzo
- The Strongest Thing There Is
- Hy-u-o-ook-kuh!
- Hoon-yera Mora-toorz
- A Big Mosaic
- Tutored by Bokonon
- The Happiness of Being an American
- The Pissant Hilton
- Black Death
- Cat’s Cradle
- Give My Regards to Albert Schweitzer
- Julian Castle Agrees with Newt that Everything Is Meaningless
- Aspirin and Boko-maru
- Ring of Steel
- Why McCabe’s Soul Grew Coarse
- The Waterfall Strainers
- A White Bride for the Son of a Pullman Porter
- Zah-mah-ki-bo
- Dr. Schlichter von Koenigswald Approaches the Break-even Point
- Blackout
- A Pack of Foma
- Two Little Jugs
- The Cut of My Jib
- Why Frank Couldn’t Be President
- Duffle
- Only One Catch
- Mona
- On the Poet’s Celebration of His First Boko-maru
- How I Almost Lost My Mona
- The Highest Mountain
- I See the Hook
- Bell, Book, and Chicken in a Hatbox
- The Stinking Christian
- Last Rites
- Dyot meet mat
- Down the Oubliette Goes Frank
- Like My Predecesors, I Outlaw Bokonon
- Enemies of Freedom
- A Medical Opinion on the Effects of a Writers’ Strike
- Sulfathiazole
- Pain-killer
- What Bokononists Say When They Commit Suicide
- Feast Your Eyes!
- Frank Tells Us What to Do
- Frank Defends Himself
- The Fourteenth Book
- Time Out
- Newt’s Mother’s Reticule
- History
- When I Felt the Bullet Enter My Heart
- As It Happened
- The Grand Ah-whoom
- Sanctuary
- The Iron Maiden and the Oubliette
- Mona Thanks Me
- To Whom It May Concern
- I Am Slow to Answer
- The Swiss Family Robinson
- Of Mice and Men
- Frank’s Ant Farm
- The Tasmanians
- Soft Pipes, Play On
- The End
Turn page.