Rating: 
Summary: Bagombo Snuff Box not quite up to snuff
Review: Bagombo Snuff Box continues the slow descent Vonnegut began with the publication of Timequake, which was often charming but lacked the guile and precision of earlier works such as Cat's Cradle and Deadeye Dick. The same is true for Bagombo Snuff Box as compared to collections like Palm Sunday. If Bagombo Snuff Box were a punctuation mark at the end of Vonnegut's career it would be ... rather than ! Far better than Timequake which was a definite ? Vonnegut's legacy, however, continues to inform such books as The Late Projectionist by Daedalus Howell (it may as well be a love letter to his mentor) and movies like Moebius by Gustavo Mosquera. Vonnegut will be with us a long time.
Rating: 
Summary: A must-read for the Vonnegut fanatic!
Review: Even Vonnegut's lighter side is genius. This book is a collection of short stories he published in various magazines before he became a novelist. While none make any significant statements on the human experience, they all kept me interested and entertained.
Rating:
Summary: Could be worse, Could be better
Review: Fifty years from now, Kurt Vonnegut may very well be viewed a one of the top 5 American writers of the 20th century. This is a good look into the stories that propelled him into the limelight. That said, here we go.What we have in our midst, folks, is the modern day Mark Twain. He's quirky and cynical. In this collection his quirkiness and cynicism can get a bit heavy handed. Still his approach, his ability to cram so much into so short space, is done well. It is obvious this is a younger Kurt Vonnegut. If you expect that going into this you'll be all set. If you're looking for something a little more over the top in every direction, but held together a little bit better, I recommenf Thomas Pynchon's "Slow Learner."
Rating:
Summary: Not his best work
Review: I began reading Vonnegut as a teenager. He was the first writer whose career I actually followed. When a new Vonnegut book got released, I was the first in line. So when I heard that a collection of his long-lost stories was being released, I put in my pre-order months in advance. When the book arrived I dove in head first and read every story in two days. When I closed the book I felt satisfied, but not elated or touched or any wiser -- all the things I usually feel when closing a Vonnegut book. It's not that the stories weren't entertaining -- they were. But that's all they were. They relied too heavily on Maupassant-esque "twists" at the end. After a while it seemed too gimmicky, too tricky. No epiphanies, no enlightenment, and no understanding emerged from these characters. Vonnegut himself has said that the short story is a difficult and elusive art form. He's mastered the novel, the social satire and he's got enough great books to cement his reputation as one of the 20th century's literary giants. But his short stories won't be counted among his many achievements. Read the stories for fun, but read one of his novels if you want exposure to Vonnegut's best work.
Rating: 
Summary: Different from his novels, but excellent nonetheless!
Review: I believe this to be an excellent collection of short stories from the "early Vonnegut days," if you will. To those who thoroughly enjoyed his novels, it may be a disappointment because the short stories don't necessarily carry the same weight as his novels. However, one must remember that short stories are just that, short stories. For me, someone who loves to read, but rarely has the time, it is easy to get a quick Vonnegut dose by reading one of these excellent stories!
Rating:
Summary: Different from his novels, but excellent nonetheless!
Review: I believe this to be an excellent collection of short stories from the "early Vonnegut days," if you will. To those who thoroughly enjoyed his novels, it may be a disappointment because the short stories don't necessarily carry the same weight as his novels. However, one must remember that short stories are just that, short stories. For me, someone who loves to read, but rarely has the time, it is easy to get a quick Vonnegut dose by reading one of these excellent stories!
Rating:
Summary: It's vintage...
Review: I bought this book after picking it up in an airport bookstore. I was killing time, waiting on a delayed flight, and, as happens more often than not, I was sucked into the closest bookstore. I snatched up a copy of "Bagombo Snuff Box" and opened it to the middle. The first phrase that my eyes fell upon read "Haley looked ashen." My name's Hayley, and I was absolutely wiped out that day and feeling a bit queasy at the prospect of juggling my job and the company I was picking up for the following week. I probably did look ashen. Needless to say, the book came home with me and my guest. This sort of synchronicity is what I love about Kurt Vonnegut. He breeds chaos and terror and confusion among his characters and then allows those same characters epiphanies of the simplest and most true ideas. Unfortunately, I didn't find that synchronicity again in "Bagombo Snuff Box" after my brief encounter in the airport. The stories do hail from early in Vonnegut's career. Kilgore Trout is nowhere to be found, and the plot twists are just that-- twists when we've grown to expect intricatly contortionist pretzels. It's not all bad though. Vonnegut's voice does shine through, but it's not nearly as raspy as that to which we're all accustomed.
Rating:
Summary: Can I give it 25 stars?
Review: I didn't know what to expect when I got this book in the mail. I have been very pleasantly surprised. The stories are very unlike the Vonnegut we're used to. It's similar to Thurber in many repsects. Love it!!
Rating:
Summary: Even in three generations, things don't change that much.
Review: I enjoyed this collection of Vonnegut's earlier short stories for many reasons: I liked that the same character (high school band instructor George Hemholtz) is the protagonist in three of the stories; several stories had surprise endings; Vonnegut used no profanity whatsoever--and didn't need to in order to be effective and entertaining; and reading Vonnegut's early fiction helps me get a clearer understanding of what life in America was like for my parents' and grandparents' generations. Finally, this group of tales demonstrates the author's keen insight into the lives and minds of women. Although Kurt Vonnegut was born several years after my own grandparents, I myself can identify with several of the female characters in the stories in this collection. I, too, worry that I am becoming a bored--and boring--housewife, "wasting" my potential.
Rating:
Summary: Early Works
Review: I picked this up for cheap and was pretty happy with the content. This book is good for those who like to see the evolution of a writing style. I think of this book as the supplimental disc in a DVD collectors edition. You can see how his writing style has changed and how it has stayed the same. A few of the stories have the same, predictable theme. Nonetheless, i believe this is a good read. Not too much thought has to go into reading this collection, yet the stories are not simple-minded I read the stories while riding on my bike trainer and feel I did not lose anything, but do not feel short changed either.
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