Regular price: £14.49

Membership details Membership details
  • A 30-day trial plus your first audiobook, free
  • 1 credit/month after trial – choose any book, any price
  • Easy exchanges – swap any book you don’t love
  • Keep your audiobooks, even if you cancel
  • Free, unlimited access to Audio Shows
  • After your trial, Audible is just £7.99/month
OR
In Basket

People who bought this also bought...

If This Isn't Nice, What Is? cover art

  • If This Isn't Nice, What Is?

  • Advice for the Young
  • By: Kurt Vonnegut
  • Narrated by: Kevin T. Collins, Scott Brick
  • Length: 2 hrs and 23 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4.5 out of 5 stars 37
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 34
  • Story
    4.5 out of 5 stars 34

Master storyteller and satirist Kurt Vonnegut was one of the most in-demand commencement speakers of his time. For each occasion, Vonnegut’s words were unfailingly unique, insightful, and witty, and they stayed with audience members long after graduation. As edited by Dan Wakefield, this book reads like a narrative in the unique voice that made Vonnegut a hero to readers and listeners of all ages. At times hilarious, razor-sharp, freewheeling, and deeply serious, these reflections are ideal for anyone undergoing what Vonnegut would call their "long-delayed puberty ceremony".

  • 5 out of 5 stars

  • a delight to the ears

  • By A Friend on 13-03-16
Breakfast of Champions cover art

  • Breakfast of Champions

  • By: Kurt Vonnegut
  • Narrated by: John Malkovich
  • Length: 6 hrs and 27 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4.5 out of 5 stars 153
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 147
  • Story
    4.5 out of 5 stars 147

Breakfast of Champions (1973) provides frantic, scattershot satire and a collage of Vonnegut's obsessions. His recurring cast of characters and American landscape was perhaps the most controversial of his canon; it was felt by many at the time to be a disappointing successor to Slaughterhouse-Five, which had made Vonnegut's literary reputation.

  • 5 out of 5 stars

  • A unique and biting wit

  • By Kaggy on 28-06-18
The Sirens of Titan cover art

  • The Sirens of Titan

  • By: Kurt Vonnegut
  • Narrated by: Jay Snyder
  • Length: 9 hrs and 20 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars 112
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 86
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars 86

The richest, most depraved man on Earth, Malachi Constant, is offered a chance to take a space journey to distant worlds with a beautiful woman at his side. Of course, there's a catch to the invitation...

  • 1 out of 5 stars

  • The first audio book I couldn't finish

  • By Ruddy good student on 09-05-18
Jailbird cover art

  • Jailbird

  • By: Kurt Vonnegut
  • Narrated by: Richard Ferrone
  • Length: 8 hrs and 44 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4.5 out of 5 stars 6
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 6
  • Story
    4.5 out of 5 stars 6

Walter Starbuck, a career humanist and eventual low-level aide in the Nixon White House, is implicated in Watergate and jailed, after which he (like Howard Campbell in Mother Night) works on his memoirs. Starbuck is innocent (his office was used as a base for the Watergate shenanigans of which he had no knowledge), and yet he is not innocent (he has collaborated with power unquestioningly and served societal order all his life). He represents another Vonnegut Everyman caught amongst forces he neither understands nor can defend.

Timequake cover art

  • Timequake

  • By: Kurt Vonnegut
  • Narrated by: Arthur Bishop
  • Length: 4 hrs and 49 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars 9
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 9
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars 9

According to Kurt Vonnegut's alter ego, the old science fiction writer Kilgore Trout, a global timequake will occur on February 13, 2001, at 2:27 p.m. It will be the moment when the universe suffers a crisis of conscience: Should it go on expanding indefinitely or collapse and make another great big BANG? For its own cosmic reasons, it decides to back up a decade to 1991, giving the world a 10-year case of deja vu, making everybody and everything do exactly what they'd done during the past decade.

Mother Night cover art

  • Mother Night

  • By: Kurt Vonnegut
  • Narrated by: Victor Bevine
  • Length: 6 hrs and 7 mins
  • Unabridged
  • Overall
    4.5 out of 5 stars 38
  • Performance
    4.5 out of 5 stars 26
  • Story
    4.5 out of 5 stars 26

American Howard W. Campbell, Jr., a spy during World War II, is now on trial in Israel as a Nazi war criminal. But is he really guilty? In this brilliant book rife with true gallows humor, Kurt Vonnegut turns black and white into a chilling shade of grey with a verdict that will haunt us all. Mother Night is a daring challenge to our moral sense.

  • 3 out of 5 stars

  • German anyone???

  • By PAOLA on 22-05-14

Summary

Called “our finest black-humorist” by The Atlantic Monthly, Kurt Vonnegut was one of the most influential writers of the 20th century. Now his first and last works come together for the first time in print, in a collection aptly titled after his famous phrase, We Are What We Pretend To Be.

Written to be sold under the pseudonym of “Mark Harvey,” Basic Training was never published in Vonnegut’s lifetime. It appears to have been written in the late 1940s and is therefore Vonnegut’s first ever novella. It is a bitter, profoundly disenchanted story that satirizes the military, authoritarianism, gender relationships, parenthood, and most of the assumed mid-century myths of the family. Haley Brandon, the adolescent protagonist, comes to the farm of his relative, the old crazy who insists upon being called The General, to learn to be a straight-shooting American. Haley’s only means of survival will lead him to unflagging defiance of the General’s deranged (but oh so American, oh so military) values. This story and its 30ish author were no friends of the milieu to which the slick magazines’ advertisers were pitching their products.

When Vonnegut passed away in 2007, he left his last novel unfinished. Entitled If God Were Alive Today, this last work is a brutal satire on societal ignorance and carefree denial of the world’s major problems. Protagonist Gil Berman is a middle-aged college lecturer and self-declared stand-up comedian who enjoys cracking jokes in front of a college audience while societal dependence on fossil fuels has led to the apocalypse. Described by Vonnegut as, “the stand-up comedian on Doomsday,” Gil is a character formed from Vonnegut’s own rich experiences living in a reality Vonnegut himself considered inevitable.

Along with the two works of fiction, Vonnegut’s daughter, Nanette shares reminiscences about her father and commentary on these two works - both exclusive to this edition. In this fiction collection, published in print for the first time, exist Vonnegut’s grand themes: trust no one, trust nothing; and the only constants are absurdity and resignation, which themselves cannot protect us from the void but might divert.
©2012 Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. Literary Trust, Foreword copyright © 2012 by Nanette Vonnegut. (P)2012 Audible, Inc.

What members say

Average customer ratings

Overall

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Performance

  • 4.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    2
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0

Story

  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Audible.co.uk reviews
Audible.com reviews
Amazon reviews
No Reviews are Available
Sort by:
  • Overall
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    3 out of 5 stars
  • Robert
  • 02-11-12

Not a place to start.

We Are What We Pretend To Be shows the evolution of Kurt Vonnegut’s writing at the beginning and end of his career. It contains two of the author’s works. His first novella, Basic Training stands in stark contrast to his unfinished novel If God Were Alive Today. The former is a rather straight forward satire on the military, authoritarian parenting and authoritarianism in general. The latter is a completely wild and nutty, satirical look at our ignorance and denial of an apocalyptic future. Recently, I listened to a radio ad for The Last Warcrime. While I agreed with the message, the way the ad was delivered left something to be desired. I felt a little of that in IGWAT.

While the nexus of the two works is unmistakably satire, the whole feel, vocabulary and styles of writing in the two books could easily have been written by different authors. I think we hear the voice of Vonnegut in Basic Training but it is definitely a younger although not immature one. In the latter, the author comes across definitely older and more irascible, more universal and less personal.

While this might be his first and last work, I think most of KV's finest work is in many places in between. For someone new to KV, I would not recommend starting here. Slaughterhouse-Five, Cat’s Cradle or my personal favorite The Sirens of Titan would be a better introduction to the author. For hardcore KV fans, WAWWPTB is probably essential reading.

This is a quick read/listen. The narration in my Audible selection is quite good. Plus, in this edition, the author’s daughter Nanette shares reminiscences about her father and a commentary on these two works.

8 of 8 people found this review helpful

  • Overall
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    4 out of 5 stars
  • Brenda J Tolbert
  • 12-02-18

Odd, but Enjoyable

A very odd read for me, but interesting all the same. Enjoyed the contrast and wit.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

  • Overall
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Performance
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Story
    5 out of 5 stars
  • Martha
  • 21-01-13

Fantastic Vonnegut

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Absolutely. It is amazing to see where he went throughout his life and career. To hear his first book and his last book together is like having a glimpse into how he grew over the years.

What did you like best about this story?

I enjoyed following Vonnegut's changing style and view of the world.

Have you listened to any of the narrators’s other performances before? How does this one compare?

I've not heard any other performances by any of the narrators but I thought they were all excellent.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

There were two stories. The end of the first story was extremely heartening. The end of the second story was like bringing everything home. It was great for closure.

Any additional comments?

This was an excellent book. Any fans of Kurt Vonnegut would be wise to buy it!