Vintage Classics: Catch-22 #01: Catch-22 (50th Anniversary Edition)

Vintage Classics: Catch-22 #01: Catch-22 (50th Anniversary Edition)
Joseph Heller
RRP:
NZ$ 24.99
Our Price:
NZ$ 19.99
Paperback
h198 x 129mm - 544pg
23 Jun 2011 UK
International import eta 7-19 days
9780099529125
Out Of Stock
Currently no stock in-store, stock is sourced to your order
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 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 bestselling novel is a hilarious and tragic satire on military madness, and the tale of one man's efforts to survive it.
"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 "My all-time favourite war-novel" -- Andy McNab Spectator "Catch-22 gave us a right to laugh at the macabre. Laughter is a soldier's response to a lot of absurdity and the terror of it all. The military machine does the strangest things that make no sense to the rest of us." Tim O'Brien "Catch-22 is the only war novel I've ever read that makes any sense" -- Harper Lee, 1961
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: "I missed my deadline for Catch-22 by four or five years. I felt that it was the only book I was going to write, so I wanted to do it as well as I could. Actually, I wasn't ever sure I was going to be a writer. When I started Catch-22, I thought writing novels might be a useful way to kill time." Catch-22 was first published in 1961. "Everyone in my book accuses everyone else of being crazy," Heller said of the book. "Frankly, I think the whole society is nuts. The question is: what does a sane man do in an insane society?" His second novel, Something Happened was published in 1974, Good As Gold in 1979, Closing Time in 1994 and Portrait of an Artist, as an Old Man in 2000. Joseph Heller died in 1999.

In stock - for items in stock we aim to dispatch the next business day. For delivery in NZ allow 2-5 business days, with rural taking a wee bit longer.

Locally sourced in NZ - stock comes from a NZ supplier with an approximate delivery of 7-15 business days.

International Imports - stock is imported into NZ, depending on air or sea shipping option from the international supplier stock can take 10-30 working days to arrive into NZ. 

Pre-order Titles - delivery will vary depending on where the title is published, if local stock is available in NZ then 5-7 business days, for international imports it can be 10-30 business days. In all cases we will access the quickest supply option.

Delivery Packaging - we ship all items in cardboard sleeves or by box with either packing paper or corn starch chips. (We avoid using plastics bubble bags)

Tracking - Orders are delivered by track and trace courier and are fully insured, tracking information will be sent by email once dispatched.

View our full Order & Delivery information