Catch 22: As Recommended On Bbc2's Between The Covers

Author: Joseph Heller

Stock information

General Fields

  • : $28.00 NZD
  • : 9780099470465
  • : Random House UK
  • : VINTAGE ARROW - MASS MARKET
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  • : 0.381
  • : February 2004
  • : 199mm X 131mm X 32mm
  • :
  • : 28.0
  • : February 2006
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  • :
  • : books

Special Fields

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  • :
  • : Joseph Heller
  • : Vintage Classics Ser.
  • : Paperback
  • :
  • :
  • : English
  • : 813/.54
  • : very good
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Barcode 9780099470465
9780099470465

Description

This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller's masterpiece with a new introduction; critical essays and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos; and much more.   Nominated as one of America's best-loved novels by PBS's The Great American Read.   Soon to be a Hulu limited series starring Christopher Abbott, George Clooney, Kyle Chandler, and Hugh Laurie.   Fifty years after its original publication, Catch-22 remains a cornerstone of American literature and one of the funniest--and most celebrated--books of all time. In recent years it has been named to "best novels" lists by Time, Newsweek, the Modern Library, and the London Observer.   Set in Italy during World War II, this is the story of the incomparable, malingering bombardier, Yossarian, a hero who is furious because thousands of people he has never met are trying to kill him. But 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. Yet if Yossarian makes any attempt to excuse himself from the perilous missions he's assigned, he'll be in violation of Catch-22, a hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule: a man is considered insane if he willingly continues to fly dangerous combat missions, but if he makes a formal request to be removed from duty, he is proven sane and therefore ineligible to be relieved.   This fiftieth-anniversary edition commemorates Joseph Heller's masterpiece with a new introduction by Christopher Buckley; a wealth of critical essays and reviews by Norman Mailer, Alfred Kazin, Anthony Burgess, and others; rare papers and photos from Joseph Heller's personal archive; and much more. Here, at last, is the definitive edition of a classic of world literature.

Promotion info

One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century 20031030

Awards

Shortlisted for BBC Big Read Top 21 2003.

Reviews

"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 * "Blessedly, monstrously, bloatedly, cynically funny, and fantastically unique. No one has ever written a book like this" * Financial Times * "Wildly original, brutally gruesome, a dazzling performance that will outrage as many readers as it delights. Vulgarly, bitterly, savagely funny, it will not be forgotten by those who can take it" * New York Times * "It is the Rock and Roll of novels" -- Norman Mailer "Catch-22 is the only war novel I've ever read that makes any sense" -- Harper Lee

Author description

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 was an honorary fellow of St. Catherine's College, Oxford, which he visited periodically to meet students writing fiction. He died in 1999.