Mother Night

By Kurt Vonnegut,

Book cover of Mother Night

Book description

“Vonnegut is George Orwell, Dr. Caligari and Flash Gordon compounded into one writer . . . a zany but moral mad scientist.”—Time

Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense. American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as…

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Why read it?

3 authors picked Mother Night as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

If you’ve read any of my novels, you know I like my protagonists to be flawed. The more morally complex the main character, the better, in my opinion. And how can you get more morally questionable than an American who becomes a propagandist for the Nazi party during WWII? But wait. Is he a Nazi? Or is he just playing a part?

Another thing I love is when genre fiction has a larger moral theme that runs through it. What can I say? I don’t like to be preached at, but I do prefer stories with a strong point of…

From Jeff's list on feed your dark side.

Again, it’s difficult to pick a favorite Vonnegut book. I think he may have influenced my writing more than any other author. More than Ian Fleming. More than Elmore Leonard or Raymond Chandler. Some might say he isn’t really a thriller writer. Some may classify him as a writer of sci-fi. And yeah, maybe. But he’s so much more than that. He’s a zany magician and mad scientist who can turn utter tragedy into very black comedy. Mother Night is about Nazis and spies and war crimes and white supremacists. All the elements of a thriller combined with Vonnegut’s patented…

From Haris' list on comedy thrillers.

I discovered Vonnegut in my early 20s and the first of his books I read was Slaughterhouse Five, which I quite enjoyed and still love to this day. But it was his fictional tale of American spy Howard W. Campbell that really captured my imagination. I consider myself a “thematically based writer” and I’m much more interested in exploring layers of challenging themes than I am actual plot. Mother Night had many themes, including the struggle with one’s conscience, freedom, and obsession but it was his central theme of We are what we pretend to be, so we…

The Secret Order of the Scepter & Gavel

By Nicholas Ponticello,

Book cover of The Secret Order of the Scepter & Gavel

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Nicholas Ponticello Author Of Do Not Resuscitate: The Monkey Parade

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Nicholas' 3 favorite reads in 2024

What is my book about?

Vanderough University prepares its graduates for life on Mars. Herbert Hoover Palminteri enrolls at VU with the hope of joining the Martian colony in 2044 as a member of its esteemed engineer corps. But then Herbert is tapped to join a notorious secret society: the Order of the Scepter and Gavel. As a new pledge, Herbert has to prove himself in a series of dangerous initiation rites, even if it means risking his life and the lives of his friends.

Many years later, when Herbert thinks the scandals of his youth are finally dead and buried, a murder occurs in…

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