a book
Catch-22: Introduction by Malcolm Bradbury (Everyman's Library)
Joseph Heller · 2004 · 568 pages
Named one of America’s best-loved novels by PBS’s The Great American Read.
One of the funniest books ever written, Joseph Heller's masterpiece about a bomber squadron in the Second World War's Italian theater features a gallery of magnificently strange characters seething with comic energy. The malingering hero, Yossarian, is endlessly inventive in his schemes to save his skin from the horrible chances of war, and his story is studded with incidents and devices (including the Glorious Loyalty Oath Crusade and the hilariously sinister bureaucratic rule that gives the book its title) that propel the narrative in a headlong satiric rush. But the reason Catch-22's satire never weakens and its jokes never date stems not from the comedy itself but from the savage, unerring, Swiftian indignation out of which that comedy springs. This fractured anti-epic, with all its aggrieved humanity, has given us the most enduring image we have of modern warfare.
This hardcover Everyman's Library edition includes an introduction by Malcolm Bradbury, a chronology of the author's life and times, and a select bibliography. It is printed on acid-free paper, with sewn bindings, full-cloth covers, foil stamping, and a silk ribbon marker.
recommended by 14 people
sourced from public statements
Hugh Laurie
“A satire on war, I suppose, but that’s a pretty broad and uninteresting category by itself. Catch-22 plays with the first principles of existence: Out of a million possible examples, how about this? One soldier named Dunbar notices that time passes more slowly when you’re bored; he therefore sets about cultivating a state of perfect boredom in which time will actually stop, allowing him to live forever. Except that thought itself is interesting, and so hastens his death. And so on. Breathtakingly brilliant stuff.”↗
Yara Shahidi
“Oh, how beautifully confusing this novel is. Heller, a war veteran himself, creates a cast full of colorful characters and antagonists to illustrate the insane bureaucracy of the war machine. A perfect compatriot to Slaughter House 5, revealing that we all may have a little Yossarian and Billy Pilgram in our personalities.”↗
R Balakrishnan
“@appadappajappa Catch-22; Jonathan Livingston Seagull; Alice in Wonderland. A Sense of Where You Are. 4 magnificent books that have influenced me.”↗
Richard Thaler
“For whatever reason I am wondering whether the world around me is becoming increasingly insane or I am. So I decided to listen to the audio book of Catch 22, one of my all-time favs. The narrator @JayOSanders is superb and the book feels undated. 5 stars. Undecided on my sanity.”↗
books like Catch-22: Introduction by Malcolm Bradbury (Everyman's Library)
other books recommended by the same people who recommend this one
The Fountainhead
Ayn Rand
3 shared recommenders
The Oxford Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
3 shared recommenders
Atlas Shrugged (Centennial Ed.)
Ayn Rand
2 shared recommenders
Jonathan Livingston Seagull
Richard Bach
2 shared recommenders
The Hard Thing About Hard Things: Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
Ben Horowitz
2 shared recommenders
A Tale of Two Cities
Charles Dickens
2 shared recommenders
Outlander
Diana Gabaldon
2 shared recommenders
The Great Gatsby: Original Text
F. Scott Fitzgerald
2 shared recommenders
The Lord of the Rings
J. R. R. Tolkien
2 shared recommenders
Animal Farm: George Orwell (Macmillan Collector's Library)
George Orwell
2 shared recommenders
The Catcher in the Rye
J. D. Salinger
2 shared recommenders
The Iliad
Homer
2 shared recommenders