About this title: In this post-apocalyptic novel, a group of tourists is stranded on the Galapagos Islands, where they become the progenitors of a new race of humans with small brains, flippers for hands, and no interest in sex--the reverse of all the characteristics that the original humans had valued.
Note: This is a general synopsis. Each listing is described below.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Delacorte Press/Seymour Lawrence
ISBN-13:9780385294164ISBN:0385294166
Description: Good. Dust Cover Missing. Light shelf wear and minimal interior marks. Millions of satisfied customers and climbing. Thriftbooks is the name you can trust, guaranteed. Spend Less. Read More. read more
Description: Very Good. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Acceptable. May have wear or tear to spine, edges and or cover. Creases in spine. Bent/rounded corners. May have highlighting/notes. read more
Edition: Edition Unstated
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Dell Pub Co, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780440127796ISBN:0440127793
Description: Good- As issued No Jacket. Spine lean, corner bumps, corner creases both covers, pages age toned, heavy edgewear covers and spine extremities, small split at rear spine heel corner, small stain on the right edge of the book, and other moderate to heavy shopwear. Text is clean. read more
Edition: Edition Unstated
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Dell Pub Co, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780440127796ISBN:0440127793
Description: Very Good- As issued No Jacket. Spine lean, corner bumps, owner's inscription on the ffep, and the covers have been laminated and are wrinkling in a couple of places. Text is clean. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Dell Publishing
Date Published: 1985
ISBN-13:9780385294201ISBN:0385294204
Description: Fair. No Jacket. Size: 8vo-over 7¾"-9¾" tall; Cover lightly soiled and pages clean. some edge/corner wear. binding secure. no dust jacket. Writing on first page. read more
Edition: First Printing
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Dell Pub Co, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1986
ISBN-13:9780440127796ISBN:0440127793
Description: Good. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. Some soiling and edge wear to wraps. Name written inside. Light shelf wear. Solid copy with clean pages. read more
Edition: 1st Printing
Binding: Mass Market Paperback
Publisher: Dell Pub Co, New York, U.S.A.
Date Published: 1997
ISBN-13:9780440127796ISBN:0440127793
Description: Good. No Dust Jacket as Issued. 12mo-over 6¾"-7¾" tall. Book shows moderate wear/ spine tight, pages clean/ covers creased and scuffed; moderate edge wear/ Friends of the Library stamp on title and or front page/ corners, spine hinge and spine creased/ readers slant/ pages slightly yellowed/ several page tips creased. read more
Edition: First edition. 1st trade ed.
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Delacorte Press
Date Published: 1985
ISBN-13:9780385294164ISBN:0385294166
Description: Very good in fine dust jacket. top page block slightly mottled; otherwise fine. Sewn binding. Paper over boards. 295 p. Audience: General/trade. "First trade edition". read more
Edition: 1st Edition
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Delacorte Press, New York
Date Published: 1985
ISBN-13:9780385294164ISBN:0385294166
Description: Very Good in Very Good jacket. Book. 8vo-over 7�"-9�" tall. First Trade Edition; Seymour Lawrence; Very Good/Very Good in Boards; Spine slightly cocked; Text wavy from damp (not stained); Soiling to top edge of textblock; Rubbing to bottom edge of boards; Minor edgewear and rubbing to DJ; DJ in archival mylar jacket. read more
"I am an obsessive compulsive reader, I do not read books one chapter at a time over a series of days, I read them all at once whenever possible. This becomes as serious problem when one picks up a good book at about 9pm and can't put it down until 1 am that morning when they have finished it. Kurt Vonnegut's Galapagos was one of those books,I read the entire thing the day (and technically the next morning as well) . What I really like about this book is the combination of Vonnegut's ideas and his irreverent black humor. This is the sort of book that makes you laugh at times and think hard at others. Vonnegut's irreverent jokes about the insanity of money and the magic that is human belief and how they effect reality. He ridicules us for causing mass starvation in some countries simply because we put less faith in small slips of paper money then before. One of the things that I really liked about the book was just how different the experience of reading it was from some other more formulaic books I have read, Galapagos was different. Vonnegut's writing was new and interesting enough to keep me going and left an impression. It's difficult to describe how the story is told, so suffic eit to say that we are being given pieces of the ending and what is beggining so by the time we reach a certain point we know the begging and a rough outline of the end but not the middle. In case you haven't read it the premise of the book is that modern humanity is ending in a combination of disease war and global economic collapse and the few survivors are trapped on Santa Rosalita Island. Their descendants eventually evolve, though we might consider it devolving, into vaguely seal like creatures that thrive on catching fish. While the story is interesting and compelling I would almost compare it to a parable in that the ideas are more important then the story, however compelling that story may be. The narrator of our story is a very similar character to Vonnegut himself having reached some of the conclusions I think Vonnegut has reached and could be considered a very clever self insert by the author. Both Vonnegut and the narrator fought in the Vietnam War and emerged jaded from their experiences there. From what I have seen of Vonnegut's interviews he and the narrator also agree that humanity is evil and will eventually be its own undoing. The thesis of the book is that the human brain is far too intelligent for its own good and frequently deceives us into making bad choices or perpetrating atrocities that no other species could. He says that some natural mechanism, either natural disaster (which he describes as the earths immune system) or an evolutionary change, will remove these evil brains from humanity and restore the planet to its previous innocence. When I read Galapagos I felt a sort of automatic rejection to these ideas, humans have accomplished a great number of things on this earth and we continue to strive to for our betterment. Almost as soon as I had these reactions I thought about the sort of life experiences I have had and those that Vonnegut have had, and realized that Vonnegut has seen humanity at its most base and desolate and though I Could never accept his ideas I could not entirely discount them either out of respect for what he had been through. I think that these ideas are just so extreme and offer a course of action so unpalatable by most Americans that while thought provoking, nearly all will reject the ideas almost automatically. I really enjoyed Galapagos and highly recommend it, it's fresh writing style and humor make it very enjoyable and its ideas will make you think but I think the ideas will be hard to pallate for most people."
"This book is an impressive example of how you can learn the entire plot of the story right at the beginning yet still enjoy reading the rest of the book. Key idea: something is rendering all of humanity sterile, but just as the last babies are being born, an accidental shipwreck on one of the Galapagos Islands ensures that humanity (albeit adapted over millennia) will survive -- from just one original man and several women. As you read, you already know the high points, but the fun surprises are in the details and how it all fits together. In fact, the story itself isn't that amazing or engaging. But the telling of it genuinely is. I enjoyed the back-and-forth narrative as it skipped into the future, back into the past, and even become ultra self-referential from time to time (and you have to love the asterisks!). The ongoing gag about "big brains" and the problems they give us -- and how much better life is when our brains evolve to shrink down -- somehow did not get old for me. I agreed with all of the big-brain commentary. :) Thanks for the fun read, Vonnegut!"
"Wikipedia insists that Vonnegut is a humanist, but I've only ever detected contempt for humanity in his books. I found this book to be characteristic in that it describes a materialistic world view, which includes no room for sympathetic characters (almost as if people aren't worth bothering about) and seeks solace in a celebration of the absurdity of trying to apply meaning to meaningless material processes (thanks, but no thanks). Like all of his books, the narrative techniques are far too clever for their own good, and have the result of my not being able to retain any memory of the book whatsoever after only a few days. (I read "Breakfast of Champions" in college and today I literally couldn't describe to you a single moment of that book. I've read "Slaughterhouse Five" more than once, and I couldn't tell you three things about it. I'm guessing that "Galapagos" is going to end up going down the same mental garbage shoot, and sitting here with a few lingering images from the book still left in my mind, I can't say I care.)"
"Leon Trout, the ghost of a decapitated shipbuilder, narrates the humorous, ironic and sometimes carping decline of the human race, as seen through the eyes and minds of the survivors of a doomed cruise to the Galapagos Islands. Vonnegut's cast of unlikely Adams and Eves setting out in a Noah's ark includes Mary Hepburn, an American biology teacher and recent widow; Zenji Hiroguchi, a Japanese computer genius (who does not make it to the ship, although his language-translating and quotation-spouting computer does); his wife, Hisako, carrying radiated genes from the atomic bombs; James Wait, who has made a fortune marrying elderly women; and Captain Aolph von Kleist. Also included: six orphaned girls of the Kana-bono cannibal tribe, who will become the founding mothers of the fisherfolk after bacteria render all other women infertile. Serious fans of Vonnegut's wry and ribald prose will welcome this tale of the devolution of superbrained humans into gentle swimmers with small brains, but others may find this Darwinian survival tale too packed with ecological and sociological details that trap the story line in a series of literary devices, albeit very clever ones."
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