Thread: Catch-22 is the single best bit of writing... Ever.

Totally agree... Original, moving, funny, incredibly involving... I would urge everyone who hasn't read it to read it, but keep an open mind. Some people are scared off by the unique style of writing.

A good read indeed.

Personally, I would submit The Dog of the South by Charles Portis as damn good competition. Reading Portis is like eating Doritos... almost impossible to stop once you get going.

how would you sell it to some one like me who has not a single clue about it. If you can sell it to me, I will go out and buy it tomorrow.

It has been described as the funniest novel ever and even added a new word to the dictionary. I have read it cover to cover twenty times and laughed everytime. It will make you laugh and make you cry on the same page. It's as if Kurt Vonnegut (a better author, but this book is still hilarious) stopped being a cynical bastard and applied all his power to this one book. It's by Joseph Heller and it is funny as hell.

Torture me, when there isn't an actual bookstore in what might as well be a bajillion miles away!

Hilarious paradoxes, ridicuolous situations that somehow make sense in the context of the novel, excellent, seemless transition from one period of time to another and then back again...all leading to a brilliant ending that i never saw comign and yet is absolutly perfect and brilliant...and totally hilarious.

okay, thats a good start. what is the atmosphere and essence and plot of it all though? that part always comes first

The plot is war, pretty much. The second world war, and how the main character, Yossarian, wants to survive more than anything else.

The atmosphere, although often portrayed humorously, is mostly one of despair and sadness.