Vintage books Catch-22 Heller Joseph

Discover Joseph Heller's hilarious and tragic satire on military madness, and the tale of one man's efforts to survive it • It's the closing months of World War II and Yossarian has never been closer to death. Stationed in an American bomber squadron off the coast of Italy, each flight mission introduces him to thousands of people determined to kill him • But the enemy above is not Yossarian's problem - it is his own army intent on keeping him airborne, and the maddening 'Catch-22' that allows for no possibility of escape

Боб Слокум был многообещающим руководителем. У него была привлекательная жена, трое детей, хороший дом и столько любовниц, сколько он желал. Его жизнь была устоявшейся и упорядоченной; он приспосабливался, и общество требовало, чтобы он был счастлив - или, по крайней мере, делал вид, что счастлив. Но притворяться становилось все труднее и труднее, по мере того как недовольство Слокума перерастало во всепоглощающее чувство опустошенности, разочарования и страха • А потом что-то случилось • Книга на английском языке • Joseph Heller's other masterpiece - a darkly comic, sometimes tragic satire that does for the American Dream what Catch-22 did for the madness of war • 'Joseph Heller's finest achievement' Jonathan Coe • Bob Slocum was a promising executive

Inishowen is by turns wildly funny and deeply moving, from the author of Star of the Sea • From the bestselling author of Star of the Sea and Shadowplay, 'a powerful, moving adventure of raw fate and betrayed love' (Independent on Sunday) • Inspector Martin Aitken's life is a mess. He's divorced, his career's in chaos, and the last thing he needs this Christmas Even is a strange woman collapsed on a Dublin street. Ellen Donnelly is a woman on a mission, coming to Ireland to find her mother and escape her marriage. Dr Milton Amery, a New York plastic surgeon, is her unfaithful husband. The three are beginning new journeys, each of which lead to Inishowen • 'A page-turner, full of compassion, laughter and zest for the human condition' Irish Times • 'Tremendous

Sweden's elite are under attack • Two rich and powerful men have been murdered, and in the face of mounting panic - and media hysteria - a task force has been created to catch the killer • To his surprise, Detective Paul Hjelm, currently under investigation for misconduct after shooting a man who took the staff of an immigration office hostage, is summoned to join the new team • But the killer has left no clues, even removing the bullets from the crime scenes, and Hjelm and his new teammates face a daunting challenge if they are to uncover the connection between the victims and catch the murderer before he kills again

Nik Cohn began to write this book in the late 1960s with a simple purpose: to catch the feel, the pulse of Rock. Nobody had written a serious book on the subject before, and there were no reference books or research to refer to. The result is an unruly, thrilling and definitive history of an era, from Bill Haley to Jimi Hendrix, full of guts, flash, energy and speed. In vividly describing the music and cutting through the hype, Nik Cohn engendered and perfected a new form: rock criticism

From the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Overstory, an enthralling, wrenching novel about the lives and choices of one family, caught on the cusp of identities • Jonah, Ruth and Joseph are the children of mixed-race parents determined to raise them beyond time, beyond identity, steeped in song. Yet they cannot be protected from the world forever • Even as Jonah becomes a successful young tenor, the opera arena remains fixated on his race. Ruth turns her back on classical music and disappears, dedicating herself to activism and a new relationship. As the years pass, Joseph – the middle child, a pianist and our narrator – must battle not just to remain connected to his siblings, but to forge a future of his own • This is a story of the tragedy of race in America, told through the lives and choices of one family caught on the cusp of identities

Mitchell is the laureate of old New York. The hidden corners of the city and the people who lived there are his subject. He captured the waterfront rooming-houses , nickel-a-drink saloons, all-night restaurants, the 'visionaries, obsessives, imposters, fanatics, lost souls, the end-is-near street preachers, old Gypsy Kings and old Gypsy Queens, and out-and-out freak-show freaks.' Mitchell's trademark curiosity, respect and graveyard humour fuel these magical essays • Written between 1943 and 1965, Up in the Old Hotel is the complete collection of Joseph Mitchell 's New Yorker journalism and includes McSorley's Wonderful Saloon, Old Mr Flood, The Bottom of the Harbour and Joe Gould's Secret

The first novel by Joseph O'Connor, bestselling author of Star of the Sea and Shadowplay • Eddie Virago, proud owner of the last mohican haircut in Dublin, leaves his home town to find the fame and fortune he's convinced awaits in the wild world of the London rock scene • Things don't quite go as planned, however. He finds himself living in a ramshackle hotel with a girl he met on the ferry over, while a bewildering array of acid-house ravers, saloon-bar revolutionaries, music-business wideboys and media primadonnas all seem very anxious to help Eddie on his way

A deeply moving collection of stories from the bestselling author of Star of the Sea • Ranging from urgently contemporary London and Dublin to New York's Lower East Side in the nineteenth century, from dark comedy to poignancy, from the wryly provocative to the quietly beautiful, these stories - Joseph O'Connor's first collection in more than twenty years - offer a gathering of dreamers and lost souls who contend with the confusions of living • Here are men without women, children parenting parents, residents of the uncertain country that is post-boom Ireland, emigrants, travellers, cheats and lovers, families, friends and foes

Now reissued with a stunning new jacket look, The Colour is a gripping drama of sacrifice and greed set during the mid-nineteenth-century gold rush in New Zealand • Joseph and Harriet Blackstone emigrate from Norfolk to New Zealand in search of new beginnings and prosperity. But the harsh land near Christchurch threatens to destroy them almost before they begin. When Joseph finds gold in the creek he is seized by a rapturous obsession with the voluptuous riches awaiting him deep in the earth. Abandoning his farm and family, he sets off alone for the new gold-fields over the Southern Alps, a moral wilderness where many others, under the seductive dreams of 'the colour', are violently rushing to their destinies • By turns both moving and terrifying, The Colour is about a quest for the impossible, an attempt to mine the complexities of love and explore the sacrifices to be made in the pursuit of happiness

'Password Emil!' • Emil is excited to be taking the train on his own for the first time. He doesn't like the look of his fellow passenger, the man in the bowler hat. Emil will just have to keep his wits about him and his money in his pocket. But Emil falls asleep and when he wakes up the man in the bowler hat is gone - and so is the money! Emil is determined to get it back. He teams up with a gang of young detectives and so begins a hair-raising chase across Berlin to catch the dirty rotten thief

Iris Murdoch really knows how to write, can tell a story, delineate a character, catch an atmosphere with deadly accuracy • John Betjeman • A revolver shot rings through a Whitehall office one hot afternoon in the middle of an English summer. A Government official has apparently shot himself, but the circumstances are questionable - prompting Octavian Gray, head of the department in which the dead man worked, to investigate • Lawyer John Ducane is charged with the task, interviewing other civil servants by day, and by night attempting repeatedly - and unsuccessfully - to break up with his mistress. When Ducane travels to Gray's Dorset home everything becomes even more mysterious and nothing is quite as it seems