1. Papillon - Henri Charrière
2. Henderson, the rain king - Saul Bellow
3. Less than zero - Bret Easton Ellis
4. Altered carbon - Richard K. Morgan
5. The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy - Douglas Adams
6. The Colour of Magic - Terry Pratchett
7. Fabric of Reality - David Deutsch
8. The Teachings of Don Juan - Carlos Castaneda
9. Childhood's End - Arthur C. Clarke
10. The Sirens of Titan - Kurt Vonnegut jr.

Your video, Kurt Vonnegut - speech given in 2002, has made it into your personal Highest Rated Videos listing. Congratulations on a job well done. For you contribution you have been awarded 1 Power Point.

“I tell you, we are here on Earth to fart around, and don't let anybody tell you different.”
Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

"We're just a fart in the wind. This ought to take care of all that silly dynasty talk."
Ron Wolf

"If I fail, the film industry writes me off as another statistic. If I succeed, they pay me a million bucks to fly out to Hollywood and fart."
George A. Romero

"Fart"
Blankfist

Kurt Vonnegut jr. is indeed the master. It's hard to pick just five, so this list might be a little random, but here are five books I have enjoyed immensely:

1. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut jr.
2. 1984 by George Orwell
3. Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
4. Mengele Zoo by Gert Nygårdshaug
5. The Brothers Karamasov by Fjodor Dostojevskij

I especially like the religious themes in Cat's Cradle; that's why I picked it out to be on the list. But I have yet to read a Vonnegut book I didn't like, so many others could be there as well.

I really recommend Mengele Zoo to anyone who hasn't heard of it. It paints a horrible picture of the exploitation of South America, and has a main character you instantly fall in love with.

What the heck, I'll throw in a few more:
Everything by Tolkien, the A Song of Ice and Fire series by George R. R. Martin, The Eyes of the Dragon and the Dark Tower series by Stephen King, The Knights Templar series by Jan Guillou.

Seems that we like Kurt Vonnegut...

1. Catch-22 by Joseph Heller.
2. Eunoia by Christian Bök.
3. The Black Swan by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.
4. Cat's Cradle by Kurt Vonnegut.
5. Hard to decide, perhaps The Silence of the Lambs by Thomas Harris or "What If?" edited by Robert Cowley.

Tolkien

Hunter S. Thompson

Kurt Vonnegut

Franz Kafka

Favorite dystopianfuture: The Stand (although it had a typical shitty Stephen King ending)

I need to read more fiction.

surprised to see this many Camus fans. here's mine:

1 Brave New World - Aldous Huxley
2 The Fall - Albert Camus
3 Cat's Cradle - Kurt Vonnegut JR
4 Animal Farm - George Orwell
5 Siddhartha - Hermann Hesse

I'd give Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison and honorable mention, but only because I'm still reading it; great book so far though.

Looking back on it, all are fairly quick reads; great for a weekend or light reading.

- the Discworld series by Terry Pratchett; also Good Omens, which he wrote with Neil Gaiman
- Altered Carbon by Richard K. Morgan (first part of Takeshi Kovacs' trilogy)
- Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut (hard to single out any of his books, they're all great imo)
- Henderson the Rain King by Saul Bellow
- The Elementary Particles by Michel Houellebecq
- The Fabric of Reality by David Deutsch (a four-strand theory of everything)
and then some

I've read so many great books that it's really hard for me to whittle it down to five that I think are the best, so I'm going to go with the first five that come into my head. I'm guessing that the first five must have made the greatest impression on me, so it's a reasonable place to start a favorites list.

1. Slaughterhouse Five - Kurt Vonnegut. Vonnegut is probably the single most influential author to me. His protagonists and story lines always clicked with me. It was like he was writing them just for me.

2. Catch 22 - Joseph Heller. Everyone's heard of this one, and it's considered by many to be one of the best novels of the 20th century. If you haven't read it yet, put it next on your to-read list. Notice my first two novels are both set in World War II. I don't know if that means anything or not.

3. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay - Michael Chabon. Considered by many to be Chabon's greatest work. I noticed you read one of his book's, dag. I think you owe it to yourself to read this one. I plan on reading The Yiddish Policemen's Union soon, because I've heard good things about it too.

4. The Trial - Franz Kafka. A dark novel, to say the least. To me it's about the absurdity of life and accepting fate. I don't believe in fate, but I sometimes wonder about the futility of existence. Can't help it.

5. The Foundation series - Isaac Asimov. Read the series when I was a teenager. The idea of being able to use science to not only predict but also control future events fascinated me, and that it was set in the future, complete with space travel, made it even more interesting. I liked how Asimov later was able to merge the Foundation series with the Robot series.

Other novels worthy of mention:

- Tropic Of Cancer - Henry Miller - Almost made the Top 5
- Life of Pi - Yann Martel
- Galapagos - Kurt Vonnegut
- Crime and Punishment - Fyodor Dostoevsky
- Breakfast Of Champions - Kurt Vonnegut
- 1984 - George Orwell
- Stranger in a Strange Land - Robert A. Heinlein
- God Knows - Joseph Heller
- Something Happened - Joseph Heller
- Ringworld - Larry Niven
- The Outsiders - S.E. Hinton

I don't know if you meant to confine this to novels or not, but I'm going wider:

Tao Te Ching - Lao Tzu
Dune (whole series) - Frank Herbert
Live from Golgotha - Gore Vidal
Macbeth - William Shakespeare
Cryptonomicon - Neal Stephenson

I'm actually in the middle of Cryptonomicon right now, but I'm already confident it belongs in that list. 5 is too short, anyway:

Catch-22 - Joseph Heller
Galápagos - Kurt Vonnegut
The Hobbit & LotR - J. R. R. Tolkien
The Name of the Rose - Umberto Eco
Fahrenheit 451 - Ray Bradbury

There's probably a couple dozen I've forgotten at the moment, and there's a lot of other fantasy novels I really enjoyed, like Roger Zelazny's "Chronicles of Amber". But that's a good start.

* "slapstick" kurt vonnegut

* "all my friends are going to be strangers" larry mcmurtry

* "american gods" neil gaimen

* "the monkey wrench gang" edward abbey

* "the captured : a true story of abduction by indians on the texas frontier" scott zesch

coincidentally, the first 4 should be read by any runaway, or aimless traveler. and it probably helps if youre from tx with #2 and #5.

Hi, my name is Arvid, and I live in Oslo, Norway. I have just finished a degree in physics from the University of Oslo, but I can't seem to let go of the student life just yet. I enjoy sifts that mess with my head, such as these.

I discovered VideoSift because Fedquip kept referring to it on his old AOL blog. I lurked here for over a year before finally signing up this autumn. For a norwegian, I have an almost unhealthy interest in american politics, and I deeply regret the decline and death of http://newsbloggers.aol.com.

On my freetime I am a musician. I have played the Euphonium since I was eight, but have in recent years switched mostly to Trombone. I mostly play and listen to jazz, first and foremost in a Big Band. I was a member of a now dead 30's swing band, and I am soon starting a new band to play some more modern jazz. I sing in a choir as well. My muscial heroes are among others Bach and Bartok, Carla Bley and Steve Swallow, Pink Floyd and Steely Dan.

I read both fantasy and classics, and my favourite authors are Kurt Vonnegut jr., George R. R. Martin, Tolkien, Dostoyevski and Gert Nygårdshaug. My username is a witness to my geeky past, as it is the Sindarin translation of my real name.

I catch onto minor hobbies sporadically as well. I used to game a lot, but this has cooled off lately. I was an avid Guitar Hero player, and got to be pretty good. I have been into sailing. I have been into fencing. I enjoy walking and skiing in the majestic norwegian mountainscape. In the summer I play with the Diabolo. My latest fad is Origami, which I used to do when I was a teenager and have just now picked up again. I have also been an extra in some norwegian music videos and minor film productions. I am the emo-looking guy playing accordion in this video.

I follow both norwegian and international politics with interest, and I have a blog in norwegian about politics and science which I update very sporadically.

Oh, and I am the older brother of Haldaug, who has a higher integrity as a sifter than me. That is why I have higher ranking than him, even though he has been a member longer than me. So go to his pqueue if you want to find some musical/thoughtful/absurd gems.

edit: Forgot to mention my favourite beverage, Brakspear Oxford Gold organic ale. Try it out.

Tags for this video have been changed from 'kurt vonnegut, documentary' to 'kurt vonnegut, documentary, kilgore trout' - edited by kulpims

Kurt Vonnegut (RIP) said the following:

And now I want to tell you about my late Uncle Alex. He was my father’s kid brother, a childless graduate of Harvard who was an honest life insurance salesman in Indianapolis. He was well-read and wise. And his principal complaint about other human beings was that they so seldom noticed it when they were happy. So when we were drinking lemonade under an apple tree in the summer, say, and talking lazily about this and that, almost buzzing like honeybees, Uncle Alex would suddenly interrupt the agreeable blather to exclaim, ''If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.''

So I do the same now, and so do my kids and grandkids. And I urge you to please notice when you are happy, and exclaim or murmur or think at some point, ''If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.''

That’s one favor I’ve asked of you.

Now I’ve got another one, a show of hands. How many of you have had a teacher at any point in your entire education who made you happier to be alive, prouder to be alive than you had previously believed possible? Now please say the name of that teacher out loud to someone sitting or standing near you.

OK? All done? ''If this isn’t nice, I don’t know what is.''

i often feel like some character in kurt vonnegut's timequake
edit: and i plan to kill my tv on camera. literaly. will update you on that and post it on my youtube channel. beware: it will nsfw, for sure (if nothing else because of excessive drug use)