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Catch-22

Catch-22

Catch-22
Stock Photo: Cover May Be Different

Catch-22 Paperback - 1996

by Heller, Joseph

  • Used
  • Good
  • Paperback
Used - Good

Description

Simon & Schuster, 1996-09-04. Paperback. Good. 8x5x1.
$5.38
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Details

  • Title Catch-22
  • Author Heller, Joseph
  • Binding Paperback
  • Edition [ Edition: Repri
  • Condition Used - Good
  • Pages 464
  • Volumes 1
  • Language ENG
  • Publisher Simon & Schuster, New York
  • Date 1996-09-04
  • Bookseller's Inventory # 0684833395-3-18784738
  • ISBN 9780684833392 / 0684833395
  • Weight 0.9 lbs (0.41 kg)
  • Dimensions 8.4 x 5.4 x 1.2 in (21.34 x 13.72 x 3.05 cm)
  • Size 8x5x1
  • Ages 14 to 18 years
  • Grade levels 9 - 13
  • Reading level 1140
  • Library of Congress subjects War stories, World War, 1939-1945
  • Library of Congress Catalog Number 2004558446
  • Dewey Decimal Code FIC

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About this book

Catch-22 is Joseph Heller’s first novel and his most acclaimed work. Set during World War II, the novel uses a distinctive non-chronological third-person omniscient narration, mainly focusing on the life of Captain John Yossarian, a U.S. Army Air Forces B-25 bombardier. Occasionally, the narrator also shows us how other characters, such as the chaplain or Hungry Joe, experience the world around them. As the novel’s events are described from the different points of view through separate out-of-sequence storylines, the timeline of Catch-22 develops along with the plot.

The novel's title refers to a plot device that is repeatedly invoked in the story. Catch-22 starts as a set of paradoxical requirements whereby airmen mentally unfit to fly did not have to, but could not actually be excused. By the end of the novel, the phrase is invoked as the explanation for many unreasonable restrictions. “Catch-22” has since entered the English language and can be understood as an unsolvable logic puzzle, a difficult situation from which there is no escape.

Upon publication, the book was not a best seller in the United States. It was merely a cult favorite until the publication of the paperback edition in 1962, which set record sales — most likely benefitting from a national debate about the pointlessness of the Vietnam War. Catch-22 has since been ranked as one of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century by the Modern Library, one of the 20th century's top 100 novels by the Radcliffe Publishing Course, and one of the 100 greatest novels of all time by The Observer. 

First line

It was love at first sight.

First Edition Identification

Simon & Schuster first published Catch-22 in June of 1961. The first edition is bound in blue cloth, the top edges of its pages are stained red, and the statement “First Printing” appears on the copyright page. The dust jacket of the first edition has the original $5.95 price on the bottom of the front flap and author's picture on the back panel with no blurbs.

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