Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition
  • Published: 1 August 2011
  • ISBN: 9780099529125
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 544
  • RRP: $26.00
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Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition

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50th anniversary of Catch 22's publication. Yossarian lives!

Explosive, subversive, wild and funny, 50 years on the novel's strength is undiminished. Reading Joseph Heller's classic satire is nothing less than a rite of passage.

Set in the closing months of World War II, this is the story of a bombardier named Yossarian who is frantic and furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. His real problem is not the enemy - it is his own army which keeps increasing the number of missions the men must fly to complete their service. If Yossarian makes any attempts to excuse himself from the perilous missions then he is caught in Catch-22: if he flies he is crazy, and doesn't have to; but if he doesn't want to he must be sane and has to. That's some catch...
  • Published: 1 August 2011
  • ISBN: 9780099529125
  • Imprint: Vintage Classics
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 544
  • RRP: $26.00
Categories:
Share…

About the author

Joseph Heller

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.

portrait photo of Joseph Heller

Also by Joseph Heller

Catch-22
Work
Good As Gold
Bodywise
Catch 22
Something Happened
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Praise for Catch-22: 50th Anniversary Edition

To my mind, there have been two great American novels in the past fifty years. Catch-22 is one

Stephen King

Catch-22 is the only war novel I've ever read that makes any sense

Harper Lee

The greatest satirical work in the English language

Observer

Blessedly, monstrously, bloatedly, cynically funny and fantastically unique. No one has ever written a book like this

Financial Times

Catch-22 is the greatest satirical work in English since Erewhon...remarkable... This is a book that I could wish everyone to read. It is a book which should help us feel more clearly

Philip Toynbee, Observer

Never has a book been laughed and wept over so many times

Guardian

The war novel to end all war novels

Independent

Unforgettable

Sunday Times

Outrageously funny

Observer

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.

Nathaniel Parker, Daily Express