A narrator who is researching a book about the day the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima becomes entangled with the family of Felix Hoenikker, a scientist who helped create it. His search leads to the Caribbean island of San Lorenzo, a poor and strange nation whose people follow a invented religion called Bokononism, built on comforting lies. Along the way the story touches on a mysterious substance with the power to change the world. Short chapters, sharp jokes and a playful invented vocabulary make this a funny, unsettling satire about science, belief and human folly.
Quotes
Nothing in this book is true."Live by the foma* that make you brave and kind and healthy and happy." — The Books of Bokonon 1:5*Harmless untruths
All of the true things that I am about to tell you are shameless lies.
Anyone unable to understand how a useful religion can be founded on lies will not understand this book either.So be it.
Ladies and Gentlemen, I stand before you now because I never stopped dawdling like an eight-year-old on a spring morning on his way to school. Anything can make me stop and look and wonder, and sometimes learn. I am a very happy man. Thank you.