Early In my adulthood I learned that to be considered crazy and be given asylum from my superiors in an establishment catering to lunatics, I had first to be proven crazy enough to be excused from my Alpha Male immediate superior's stiff medicine.Catch-22.In my twenties, I had an enormous problem with Yossarian… because he was me. I LIVED Catch-22 in my brain and in my private life.For years, every time I’d pick this battered paperback from off my shelf, I would laugh at first. But then, my chuc...

Here is my more in-depth review:https://youtu.be/RcT_gSiCY8kSorry, I don't get it. So many circular conversations that at the outset we know aren't going anywhere. Too many characters to care about any of them. Failed as a moving war novel and failed as a comedic novel. It just wasn't funny!Almost 20 hours on the audiobook, and I wish I could get those units of my life back.2025 Reading ScheduleJan A Town Like AliceFeb BirdsongMar Captain Corelli's Mandolin - Louis De BerniereApr War and PeaceMa...

Hmm, where to start with a book like this one. A book that is a third Kafka, a third Vonnegut, a third Pynchon and completely insane? For the first 200 or 250 pages, it is like a broken record or a movie loop with Sisyphus rolling that boulder up a hill in American WWII battle fatigues (and a flight suit and a Mae West life preserver sans the inflation module thanks the M&M Enterprises). Then, when the flak starts flying and the blood is splattered everywhere it is intense right up until the...

”You mean there’s a catch?”“Sure there’s a catch, “ Doc Daneeka replied. “Catch-22. Anyone who wants to get out of combat duty isn’t really crazy.”There was only one catch and that was Catch-22, which specified that a concern for one’s own safety in the face of dangers that were real and immediate was the process of a rational mind. Orr was crazy and could be grounded. All he had to do was ask; and as soon as he did, he would no longer be crazy and would have to fly more missions. Orr would be ...

I originally read this about 15 years ago. When I joined Goodreads and added the books I had previously read I remembered it as a 3 star book. I am not sure if it is being 15 years older or the fact that I did the audiobook this time, but it was easily 5 stars now!The first thing that came to mind after I was a few chapters into this was the show “Seinfeld”. Always touted as a show about nothing, this book was kind of about nothing. It is series of smaller anecdotes, usually somewhat silly, that...

I have had Catch-22 on my bookshelf for years. It was one of those novels that I've said, "oh I'll get around to that in 2012". It didn't happen. "Maybe 2013". Nope. And so on until just a couple of days ago. I've got to stop putting books off. Rarely has a piece of literature ticked so many of my boxes. Satire, farce, gallows humour, irreverence, it's as if this book were written entirely for me. I loved every word on every page of this book. I cannot find a single miniscule fault anywhere with...

A shiny new batch of awesome for my "all time favorite" shelf. It has been awhile since I’ve so throughly enjoyed reading a novel that has, at the same time, left me as intellectually awestruck as Joseph Heller’s classic sermon on the insanity of war. What a sublime, literary feast. To prepare:1. Start with a surrealistic, Kafkaesque worldview basted in chaos;2. Knead in a plot reminiscent of Pynchon, taking particular care that the bizarre, placidly disjointed surface fully camouflages the ...

The following is an example of how many conversations in this book took place.Jen: I didn't like this book.Nigel: Why didn't you like the book?Jen: I did like the book.Nigel: You just said you didn't like the book.Jen: No I didn't.Nigel: You're lying.Jen: I don't believe in lying.Nigel: So you never lie?Jen: Oh yes, I lie all the time.Nigel: You just said you don't believe in it.Jen: I don't believe in it, Jen said as she ate a chocolate covered cotton ball.Nigel: Well I liked the book.Jen: Fabu...

I suffered through about 60 pages, and finally put it down. I very rarely ever leave a book unfinished. The author narrates and introduces us to Yossarian, who does not want to fly in the war. I get that. I get the whole catch 22 scenerio... You have to be insane to fly the plane. If you can get a dr to say you are insane, you wont have to fly. But in order to tell a dr that you are insane, this actually means you are sane. So you must continue to fly... which makes you insane. blah blah blah.Wh...

I have attempted to read this book on two separate occasions and I couldn't get beyond 100 pages either time. I do believe that this has more to do with me than the book and I plan on making a third attempt at some point in the future. Currently it sits on my bookshelf and sometimes (when I have a few too many beers) we have a talk.Me: Hi.Catch-22: Oh, hi.Me: How are you feeling?Catch-22: I've been better.Me: Don't be upset. It's not you. It's me.Catch-22: I know that.Me: My friends tell me I'm ...