Joseph Heller

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.

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 thirty-five years after the explosion of Catch-22 into the world's consciousness, Heller gives us his life. Here is his Coney Island childhood, down the block from the world's most famous amusement park. It was the height of the Depression,...

A masterful short story from the acclaimed author of Catch-22, about one long night of anticipation.In a small town in the American South, it is night in the middle of the twentieth century. Carter, a high-school teacher and football coach in the newly desegregated schools, is awaiting news of two of his students who have been in a serious altercation. Outside the building where Carter has kept his vigil, a crowd of townspeople have also gathered...

An evening of readings and discussion: Heller's friends and colleagues including Christopher Buckley, Robert Gottlieb, and Mike Nichols. They revisit his classic black comedy set at the end of World War II, one of the most important books about patriotism, honor, and the absurdities of war and beauracracy of the 20th century. The conversation is led by Lesley Stahl. An excerpt is performed by Scott Shepherd (Gatz).

Snoopy tabloid magazine editor Bob Weston wants to know if author Helen Gurley Brown based her book on, as he believes, personal research. He tries to parley an interview with the author who made headlines and sales. So he decides to get very personal to find out for himself.

Mike Nichols superbly directed this cinematic adaptation of Joseph Heller’s scathing black comedy, a tale of a small group of flyers in the Mediterranean in 1944. There are winners and losers, opportunists and survivors. Separately and together they are nervous, frightened, often profane and sometimes pathetic. Almost all are a little crazy. Catch-22 is an anti-war satire of epic proportions.