Catch-22
Vintage Classics Most Red Series
Published in 2021
Book
Paperback/Softback
672 pages
978-1-78487-592-3 (ISBN)
Description
MOST LOVED. MOST RED. Ten must-read modern classics.
'He was going to live forever, or die in the attempt.'
It's the closing months of the Second World War and Yossarian has never been closer to death. Stationed in an American bomber squadron off the coast of Italy, each flight mission introduces him to thousands of people determined to kill him. But the enemy above is not Yossarian's problem - it is his own army intent on keeping him airborne, and the maddening 'Catch-22' that allows for no possibility of escape.
No book has satirised military madness so hilariously and tragically. It is the tale of one man's struggle to survive the sheer lunacy of war.
'He was going to live forever, or die in the attempt.'
It's the closing months of the Second World War and Yossarian has never been closer to death. Stationed in an American bomber squadron off the coast of Italy, each flight mission introduces him to thousands of people determined to kill him. But the enemy above is not Yossarian's problem - it is his own army intent on keeping him airborne, and the maddening 'Catch-22' that allows for no possibility of escape.
No book has satirised military madness so hilariously and tragically. It is the tale of one man's struggle to survive the sheer lunacy of war.
Reviews / Votes
It is a rare book in that it has the ability to make you laugh out loud and be deeply moved within a few pages. -- Adam Staten * British Journal of General Practice * For me, the greatest novel in the English language -- Tony Kent * Daily Express * Wildly original, brutally gruesome, a dazzling performance that will outrage as many readers as it delights. Vulgarly, bitterly funny, it will not be forgotten by those who can take it * New York Times * Blessedly, monstrously, bloatedly, cynically funny and fantastically unique. No one has ever written a book like this * Financial Times * The greatest satirical work in the English language * Philip Toynbee, Observer *More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
London
United Kingdom
Publishing group
Vintage Publishing
Dimensions
Height: 178 mm
Width: 129 mm
Thickness: 129 mm
Weight
436 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-78487-592-3 (9781784875923)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Joseph Heller was born in 1923 in Brooklyn, New York. He served as a bombardier in the Second World War and then attended New York University and Columbia University and then Oxford, on a Fullbright scholarship. He taught for two years at Pennsylvania State University, before returning to New York, where he began a successful career in the advertising departments of Time, Look and McCall's magazines. It was during this time that he had the idea for Catch-22. Working on the novel in spare moments and evenings at home, it took him eight years to complete and was first published in 1961. His second novel, Something Happened, was published in 1974, Good As Gold in 1979 and Closing Time in 1994. He is also the author of the play We Bombed in New Haven.