Catch-22: As recommended on BBC2's Between the Covers

Description

One of the greatest novels of the twentieth century, now celebrating its 50th anniversary. **AS SEEN ON BBC TWO's BETWEEN THE COVERS** Discover Joseph Heller's hilarious and tragic satire on military madness, and the tale of one man's efforts to survive it. It's the closing months of World War II 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. 'The greatest satirical work in the English language' Observer

Joseph Heller was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1923. In 1961, he published Catch-22, which became a bestseller and, in 1970, a film. He went on to write such novels as Something Happened, God Knows, Picture This, Closing Time (the sequel to Catch-22), and Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man. Heller died in December 1999.

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