Catch-22 [Paperback]

`A wondrous book with many layers. When I first read it at 14 the story of war and passion really inspired me. It was like reading something in neon: everything came alive. As a teenager you start to feel the world is against you and I identified strongly with Yossarian and his dilemma. One of the funniest things I've ever read.' --Daily Express

`Catch 22 was one of the first books I read that I really lost myself in. Having only read it once, I find that I still miss the characters to this day' --Independent Magazine

The greatest satirical work in the English language since EREHWON

An apocalyptic masterpiece

The nth book in our stunning 'Vintage Love Film' promotion --This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

At the heart of Joseph Heller's bestselling novel, first published in 1961, is a satirical indicement of military madness and stupidity, and the desire of the ordinary man to survive it. It is a tale of the dangerously sane Captain Yossarian, who spends his time in Italy plotting to survive.

Set in the closing months of World War II in an American bomber squadron off the coast of Italy, Catch-22 is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he has never even met keep trying to kill him.

Joseph Heller's hilarious and tragic satire on military madness was adapted into a film in 1970. Directed by Mike Nichols, the film starred Alan Arkin as Yossarian and featured Art Garfunkel, Jon Voight, Martin Sheen and Orson Welles.

--This text refers to an alternate Paperback edition.

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, the last on a Fullbright scholarship. He then 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. Joseph Heller is an honorary fellow of St. Catherine's College, Oxford, which he visits periodically to meet students who are writing fiction. He lives in East Hampton, New York