Best Selling Books by Joseph Heller

A sequel to Catch-22, the 1961 humorous bestseller about a group of American airmen during World War II. The novel follows many of the same characters in their current escapades--mainly to do with selling defense equipment to the Pentagon. In addition, there are their views on the decline of America.

An uproarious and frank memoir of illness and recovery, No Laughing Matter is a story of friendship and recuperation from the author of the classic Catch-22. It all began one typical day in the life of Joe Heller. He was jogging four miles at a clip these days, working on his novel God Knows, coping with the complications of an unpleasant divorce, and pigging out once or twice a week on Chinese food with cronies like Mel Brooks, Mario Puzo, and his buddy of more than twenty years, Speed Vogel. He was feeling perfectly fine that day—but within twenty-four hours he would be in intensive care at Manhattan''s Mount Sinai Hospital. He would remain hospitalized for nearly six months and leave in a wheelchair. Joseph Heller had Guillain-Barré syndrome, a debilitating, sometimes fatal condition that can leave its victims paralyzed from head to toe. The clan gathered immediately. Speed—sometime artist, sometime businessman, sometime herring taster, and now a coauthor—moved into Joe''s apartment as messenger, servant, and shaman. Mel Brooks, arch-hypochondriac of the Western world, knew as much about Heller''s condition as the doctors. Mario Puzo, author of the preeminent gangster novel of our time, proved to be the most reluctant man ever to be dragged along on a hospital visit. These and lots of others rallied around the sickbed in a show of loyalty and friendship that not only built a wild and spirited camaraderie but helped bring Joe Heller, writer and buddy extraordinaire, through his greatest crisis. This book is an inspiring, hilarious memoir of a calamitous illness and the rocky road to recuperation—as only the author of Catch-22 and the friend who helped him back to health could tell it. No Laughing Matter is as wacky, terrifying, and greathearted as any fiction Joseph Heller ever wrote.

Bob Slocum, an average, middle-aged man with a good job, slowly becomes more and more unhappy with the routine of his life.

As the Biblical David lies on his death-bed he looks back on his own, crowded life and tells all.

"As Rembrandt is creating his famous painting of Aristotle contemplating the bust of Homer, Aristotle is soon able to see and hear. As the masterpiece makes its way through history, Aristotle''s complicated mind finds unanswerable dilemmas."--

Not many writers introduce a phrase - let alone a whole idea - into the language. In CATCH-22, Joseph Heller invented a motif for the modern world. For that book alone he is one of the greatest American writers of the twentieth century. But where did the author who was able to create that novel come from? And what happened to those remarkable characters? CATCH AS CATCH CAN for the first time collects early works, previously unpublished stories and lost chapters of CATCH-22 to chart the development of a genius. It also explores the consequences in the later stories of the unforgettable Yossarian, and Heller''s non-fiction pieces, in which the author reflects upon his childhood in Coney Island and the novel which shaped everything that was written after it.

Dr. Bruce Gold, a forty-eight-year-old Jewish professor of English, faces the possibilities of being appointed to a high State Department position and being disowned by his family.

The demented Army Air Force of "Catch-22", the lethal business world of "Something Happened", the dysfunctional family of "Good as Gold"--all these, we have assumed, had their roots in Joseph Heller''s own past. Now, more than 35 years after "Catch-22", Heller gives readers his life. Written with the energy, the humor, the mischief, and the dark undertones that characterize all his works.

Collections of interviews with notable modern writers

Imagine an author who has become a legend in his own lifetime - all because of the novel he wrote in the first flush of youth. Novelist Eugene Pota is a cultural icon of the twentieth century, struggling to write what will be the last novel of his career. But what to write about when, like so many noted authors before him, all of Pota''s output since that first, landmark novel has been scrutinized and dissected - and found wanting? PORTRAIT OF THE ARTIST, AS AN OLD MAN follows Pota''s efforts to settle on a subject for his final work. In his search, Heller - through Pota - pays homage to his favourite authors and discusses the problems that have plagued so many writers whose later works failed to live up to the successes of their first: F. Scott Fitzgerald, Henry James, Jack London, Joseph Conrad, to name but a few. It is a rare and enthralling look into the artist''s search for creativity, a search that comes at a point in life when impotence - both sexual and spiritual - has become a frustrating fact. Joseph Heller must have known that this would be his final novel; it stands as a fitting testament to the life and works of a leading light in modern literature.

A guide to reading "Catch-22" with a critical and appreciative mind encouraging analysis of plot, style, form, and structure. Also includes background on the author''s life and times, sample test, term paper suggestions, and a reading list.

Joseph Heller tells the story of the complex and often conflicting political calculations that led directly to the founding of the independent Jewish state of Israel in the aftermath of World War II and the Holocaust. Examining the positions of many competing parties, he explains how and why the charismatic David Ben-Gurion prevailed: by shrewdly manoeuvering between radical extremes on the left and on the right, he says, Ben-Gurion managed to steer a successful middle-of-the-road policy in favour of partition.

In the books first essay, The Ben-Gurion Magnes Debate, Jewish State or Binational State, Professor Heller juxtaposes David Ben-Gurion and Judah L. Magnes as pivotal adversaries speaking to the primary problems of Zionist ideology and identity. Heller''s companion essay, Israel''s Borders in Historical Perspective: The Security-Demography Dilemma, provides a vivid running historical account and analysis of Israel''s infra-structure, its borders and non-borders, its population densities and non-densities, its defenses and non-defenses in the face of continual besiegement.

La acción se desarrolla durante los últimos meses de la Segunda Guerra Mundial y se centra en una escuadrilla de bombarderos estadounidense. El coronel Cathcart, jefe de la escuadrilla, quiere ser ascendido a general. Y no encuentra mejor manera que enviar a sus hombres a realizar las misiones más peligrosas. Con una lógica siniestra, Yossarian, un piloto subordinado de Cathcart que intenta ser eximido del servicio alegando enfermedad mental, recibe por respuesta que sólo los locos aceptan misiones aéreas y que su disgusto demuestra que está sano y que, por tanto, es apto para volar. La evolución psicológica de Yossarian refleja la aguda crítica que hace Joseph Heller de un patriotismo mal entendido, el cual exige sacrificios inadmisibles. Trampa 22, que se convirtió en el libro de cabecera del movimiento pacifista de los años sesenta, constituye un modelo de humor negro y absurdo en la literatura estadounidense.--Desde la descripción de la editorial.

First Published in 2004. Throughout the half-century between the Crimean War and the outbreak of the First World War, few countries confronted successive British governments with the complexity of problems posed by the Ottoman Empire. This study attempts to attain three main objectives. The first is an analysis of the growth and development of British policy at two levels: the Embassy and the Foreign Office. The second is an assessment of the influence of various embassies on decision-making in the Foreign Office. The third is an estimate of the influence of European and Imperial considerations upon the formulation of Britain''s policy towards the Ottoman Empire.

This study of "The Stern Gang" attempts to demythologize the image of this extremist, Zionist underground group. The book analyzes the party''s split from the Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization) and its attempts to synthesize the politics and ideals of the right and left.

Table of contents: Fair stood the wind for France / H.E. Bates -- How Brigadier Gerard won his medal / Sir Arthur Conan Doyle -- The Invaders (from The Last enemy) / Richard Hillary -- The War of the worlds / H.G. Wells -- All quiet on the western front / Erich Maria Remarque -- The Battle of Borodino (from War and peace) / Leo Tolstoy -- Catch 22 / Joseph Heller -- Buller''s guns / Richard Hough -- Arctic convoy (from H.M.S. Ulysses) / Alistair MacLean -- The Red badge of courage / Stephen Crane -- Escape from Colditz (from They have their exits) / Airey Neave -- Goodbye to all that / Robert Graves -- The Moon''s a balloon / David Niven -- The Warrior''s soul / Joseph Conrad. (cont) -- Fly for your life / Larry Forrester -- The Naked and the dead / Norman Mailer -- The Reason why / Cecil Woodham Smith -- The Affair at Coulter''s Notch / Ambrose Bierce -- The Fort at Zinderneuf (from Beau Geste) / P.C. Wren -- The Cruel sea / Nicholas Monsarrat -- Waterloo (from Vanity fair / W.M. Thackeray -- Enemy coast ahead / Guy Gibson V.C. -- Into battle (from Her privates we) / Frederic Manning -- Acknowledgements.

This book is about our quest over the centuries, from ancient Greece onwards, for pattern in the rich diversity of life. How did our ancestors think that living creatures first came to be, each fitting so well to its specific environment? Does biodiversity have a purpose? What biodiversity exists, beyond what our eyes can see? Do dragons and unicorns exist? How did the world begin, how did order emerge and were there several Creation events? Reproduction resembles Creation in that order appears out of nothing, form out of matter. Can different reproduction modes increase biodiversity? Why sexual reproduction? Can living creatures, and hence biodiversity, arise from non-living dust? How do embryos develop, from a featureless mass into an orderly, organised living body? Does embryonic development dictate diversity and do species ever go extinct? What is a soul? Do animals have souls? Do souls migrate, between man and animal? Does inheritance of acquired characters create biodiversity? Does diversity form an orderly ladder from plants through animals to Man, or perhaps orderly circles-within-circles? These questions and many others have been central to our culture’s overall view of nature, from ancient times onwards. This book, presenting the urge to understand overall pattern in the diversity of life throughout history, takes a broad approach. It links theories of classification with those of reproduction, embryology, theology and (eventually) evolution, as they developed from ancient days onwards, over 2400 years. Over 250 illustrations accompany the text, many taken from the ancient, original treatises, many others painted especially for this book, to present specific animals or ideas. This comprehensive view of the study of biodiversity will appeal to zoology lecturers and students, biology teachers and amateur naturalists, as well as to lecturers and learners of history, of theology; and of course, to anybody seeking to broaden horizons.

For use in schools and libraries only. Set during World War II, this grotesque, comic novel recounts the amazing adventures of a bomber squadron.