Banned Book Club "Slaughterhouse-Five"

Featured24jan11:00 am12:00 pmBanned Book Club "Slaughterhouse-Five"Bookstore1Sarasota, 117 S. Pineapple Ave., Sarasota, FL 3423611:00 am - 12:00 pm AreaSarasotaTypeBook clubCost$17

Event Details

The Banned Book Club led by Bryn Durgin. This month’s selection is “Slaughterhouse-Five” by Kurt Vonnegut.

In this monthly book club dedicated to reading and protecting the most important and threatened books for our generation, January’s pick is Kurt Vonnegut’s masterpiece Slaughterhouse-Five, “a desperate, painfully honest attempt to confront the monstrous crimes of the twentieth century” (Time). Selected by the Modern Library as one of the 100 best novels of all time.

We will meet in person at our new store location at 117 S. Pineapple Ave. The book club is $17, including a copy of Slaughterhouse-Five to be picked up at Bookstore1 any time before our meeting.
About the book:

Slaughterhouse-Five, an American classic, is one of the world’s great antiwar books. Centering on the infamous World War II firebombing of Dresden, the novel is the result of what Kurt Vonnegut described as a twenty-three-year struggle to write a book about what he had witnessed as an American prisoner of war. It combines historical fiction, science fiction, autobiography, and satire in an account of the life of Billy Pilgrim, a barber’s son turned draftee turned optometrist turned alien abductee. As Vonnegut had, Billy experiences the destruction of Dresden as a POW. Unlike Vonnegut, he experiences time travel, or coming “unstuck in time.”
An instant bestseller, Slaughterhouse-Five made Kurt Vonnegut a cult hero in American literature, a reputation that only strengthened over time, despite his being banned and censored by some libraries and schools for content and language. But it was precisely those elements of Vonnegut’s writing—the political edginess, the genre-bending inventiveness, the frank violence, the transgressive wit—that have inspired generations of readers not just to look differently at the world around them but to find the confidence to say something about it. Authors as wide-ranging as Norman Mailer, John Irving, Michael Crichton, Tim O’Brien, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Strout, David Sedaris, Jennifer Egan, and J. K. Rowling have all found inspiration in Vonnegut’s words. Jonathan Safran Foer has described Vonnegut as “the kind of writer who made people—young people especially—want to write.” George Saunders has declared Vonnegut to be “the great, urgent, passionate American writer of our century, who offers us . . . a model of the kind of compassionate thinking that might yet save us from ourselves.”
More than fifty years after its initial publication at the height of the Vietnam War, Vonnegut’s portrayal of political disillusionment, PTSD, and postwar anxiety feels as relevant, darkly humorous, and profoundly affecting as ever, an enduring beacon through our own era’s uncertainties.
About Book Bans:
Book bans in public schools have recurred throughout American history, and remain an issue of concern to us at Bookstore1Sarasota. Over the past year, the scope of such censorship has expanded rapidly. In response, PEN America has collated an Index of School Book Bans, offering a snapshot of the trend. The index documents decisions to ban books in school libraries and classrooms in the U.S. from July 1, 2021 to March 31, 2022. Check it out and join us in our efforts to protect free expression and students’ first amendment rights. You can view the index here: https://pen.org/banned-in-the-usa/
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All signed up and unable to go? Please let us know! Seating is limited and there may be people on our waitlist who would like to to take your place. Please email bryn@sarasotabooks.com ASAP and hopefully, we’ll see you next time.
Click here to go to the Bookstore1Sarasota website: https://www.sarasotabooks.com/

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Time

(Tuesday) 11:00 am - 12:00 pm

Location

Bookstore1Sarasota, 117 S. Pineapple Ave., Sarasota, FL 34236

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Organizer

Bookstore1Sarasota

At Bookstore1Sarasota readers will find unexpected literary pleasures alongside their favorites, both new and classic. We feature a wide range of author events and offer customized literary event management. We are a place for celebrating the written word. Our motto: Joie de Livres. We love books and authors. Plain and simple.

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Cost

$17

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