Recommendations based on Catch-22by Joseph Heller

* statistically, based on millions of data-points provided by fellow humans

  1. A Confederacy of Dunces

    by John Kennedy Toole
    A satirical tale of an eccentric slacker's misadventures in New Orleans.

    Alternate cover for this ISBN can be found, here, "A green hunting cap squeezed the top of the fleshy balloon of a head. The green earflaps, full of large ears and uncut hair and the fine bristles ... (Goodreads)

  2. The Master and Margarita

    by Mikhail Bulgakov
    A fantastical, satirical examination of Soviet life, intersecting with the supernatural.

    The novel has two settings. The first is Moscow during the 1930s, where Satan appears at Patriarch's Ponds as Professor Woland . He is accompanied by Koroviev, a grotesquely-dressed valet; Behemoth , ... (Wikipedia)

  3. Cat's Cradle

    by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
    A satirical exploration of human folly, exposing the dangers of unchecked science and technology.

    Told with deadpan humour and bitter irony, Kurt Vonnegut's cult tale of global destruction preys on our deepest fears of witnessing Armageddon and, worse still, surviving it ... Dr Felix Hoenikker, ... (Goodreads)

  4. The Unbearable Lightness of Being

    by Milan Kundera
    A story of love and loss in a politically turbulent Czechoslovakia.

    In The Unbearable Lightness of Being , Milan Kundera tells the story of a young woman in love with a man torn between his love for her and his incorrigible womanizing and one of his mistresses and ... (Goodreads)

  5. Slaughterhouse-Five

    by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
    A surrealistic, satirical commentary on the horror of war and the loss of innocence.

    The story is told in a non-linear order by an unreliable narrator (he begins the novel by telling the reader, "All of this happened, more or less"). Events become clear through flashbacks and ... (Wikipedia)

  6. The Brothers Karamazov

    by Fyodor Dostoevsky
    A philosophical exploration of morality, faith, and family dynamics among a group of brothers.

    The Brothers Karamazov is a murder mystery, a courtroom drama, and an exploration of erotic rivalry in a series of triangular love affairs involving the “wicked and sentimental” Fyodor Pavlovich ... (Goodreads)

  7. Blindness

    by José Saramago
    A society is plunged into chaos when everyone suddenly loses their sight.

    Blindness is the story of an unexplained mass epidemic of blindness afflicting nearly everyone in an unnamed city, and the social breakdown that swiftly follows. The novel follows the misfortune of a ... (Wikipedia)

  8. The Trial

    by Franz Kafka
    A man is arrested and put on trial for a crime that remains unclear throughout the novel.

    On the morning of his thirtieth birthday, Josef K., the chief cashier of a bank, is unexpectedly arrested by two unidentified agents from an unspecified agency for an unspecified crime. Josef is not ... (Wikipedia)

  9. Infinite Jest

    by David Foster Wallace
    A journey through the absurdist world of entertainment, drugs, addiction & death.

    There are four major interwoven narratives: , These narratives are connected via a film, Infinite Jest , also referred to in the novel as "the Entertainment" or "the samizdat ". The film is so ... (Wikipedia)

  10. East of Eden

    by John Steinbeck
    Exploration of the timeless struggle between good and evil, set against a backdrop of a family saga.

    In his journal, Nobel Prize winner John Steinbeck called East of Eden “the first book,” and indeed it has the primordial power and simplicity of myth. Set in the rich farmland of California’s Salinas ... (Goodreads)

  11. Heart of Darkness

    by Joseph Conrad
    A journey into the depths of the human psyche, exploring the darkness of colonialism.

    Aboard the Nellie , anchored in the River Thames near Gravesend , Charles Marlow tells his fellow sailors how he became captain of a river steamboat for an ivory trading company. As a child, Marlow ... (Wikipedia)

  12. Don Quixote

    by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
    An aging knight's adventures and misadventures, filled with chivalry, honor, and satire.

    Don Quixote has become so entranced by reading chivalric romances that he determines to become a knight-errant himself. In the company of his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, his exploits blossom in ... (Goodreads)

  13. Ulysses

    by James Joyce
    Epic narrative following a day in the life of an Irishman living in Dublin.

    It is 8 a.m. Buck Mulligan , a boisterous medical student, calls Stephen Dedalus (a young writer encountered as the principal subject of, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, ) up to the roof of ... (Wikipedia)

  14. All Quiet on the Western Front

    by Erich Maria Remarque
    A soldier's harrowing experience of the horrors of war.

    The book tells the story of Paul Bäumer, who belongs to a group of German soldiers on the Western Front during World War I . The patriotic speeches of his teacher Kantorek had led the whole class to ... (Wikipedia)

  15. The Things They Carried

    by Tim O'Brien
    A collection of stories about the Vietnam War, interweaving the past and present.

    In 1979, Tim O'Brien's Going After Cacciato —a novel about the Vietnam War—won the National Book Award. In this, his second work of fiction about Vietnam, O'Brien's unique artistic vision is again ... (Goodreads)

  16. Midnight's Children

    by Salman Rushdie
    A magical tale of India's history told through the story of a boy born at the stroke of midnight.

    Saleem Sinai is born at the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the very moment of India’s independence. Greeted by fireworks displays, cheering crowds, and Prime Minister Nehru himself, Saleem ... (Goodreads)

  17. Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

    by Hunter S. Thompson
    A wild and hallucinatory journey through the seedy underbelly of Las Vegas.

    The basic synopsis revolves around journalist Raoul Duke ( Hunter S. Thompson ) and his attorney, Dr. Gonzo ( Oscar Zeta Acosta ), as they arrive in Las Vegas in 1971 to report on the Mint 400 ... (Wikipedia)

  18. The Plague

    by Albert Camus
    A small town in Algeria is struck by a deadly plague, testing the courage and faith of its citizens.

    The book begins with an epigraph quoting Daniel Defoe , author of, A Journal of the Plague Year, . In the town of Oran, thousands of rats, initially unnoticed by the populace, begin to die in the ... (Wikipedia)

  19. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

    by Philip K. Dick
    A dystopian sci-fi narrative about a bounty hunter hunting rogue androids.

    It was January 2021, and Rick Deckard had a license to kill. Somewhere among the hordes of humans out there, lurked several rogue androids. Deckard's assignment–find them and then..."retire" them. ... (Goodreads)

  20. Atlas Shrugged

    by Ayn Rand
    A tale of a dystopian future where the strongest minds take control of society.

    This is the story of a man who said that he would stop the motor of the world and did. Was he a destroyer or the greatest of liberators? Why did he have to fight his battle, not against his enemies, ... (Goodreads)

  21. Invisible Man

    by Ralph Ellison
    A black man's journey towards self-actualization in a world of racial oppression.

    The narrator, an unnamed black man, begins by describing his living conditions: an underground room wired with hundreds of electric lights, operated by power stolen from the city's electric grid. He ... (Wikipedia)

  22. For Whom the Bell Tolls

    by Ernest Hemingway
    A soldier's story of courage and survival in the Spanish Civil War.

    The novel graphically describes the brutality of the Spanish Civil War. It is told primarily through the thoughts and experiences of the protagonist, Robert Jordan. It draws on Hemingway's own ... (Wikipedia)

  23. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

    by Robert M. Pirsig
    A philosophical exploration of the meaning of life, seen through the lens of a cross-country motorcycle journey.

    Robert M. Pirsig's Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance is an examination of how we live, a meditation on how to live better set around the narration of a summer motorcycle trip across America's ... (Goodreads)

  24. Portnoy's Complaint

    by Philip Roth
    A young Jewish man's exploration of his own identity and the nature of his relationships.

    The famous confession of Alexander Portnoy, who is thrust through life by his unappeasable sexuality, yet held back at the same time by the iron grip of his unforgettable childhood. Hilariously ... (Goodreads)

  25. The Name of the Rose

    by Umberto Eco
    A Franciscan friar investigates a series of murders in a medieval monastery, uncovering a sinister plot.

    In 1327, Franciscan friar William of Baskerville and Adso of Melk , a Benedictine novice travelling under his protection, arrive at a Benedictine monastery in Northern Italy to attend a theological ... (Wikipedia)

  26. Pale Fire

    by Vladimir Nabokov
    A darkly comic and philosophical exploration of art, sanity, and the nature of reality.

    Shade's poem digressively describes many aspects of his life. Canto 1 includes his early encounters with death and glimpses of what he takes to be the supernatural. Canto 2 is about his family and ... (Wikipedia)

  27. War and Peace

    by Leo Tolstoy
    Epic tale of war, peace, and love, focusing on the lives of five aristocratic families.

    The novel begins in July 1805 in Saint Petersburg , at a soirée given by Anna Pavlovna Scherer—the maid of honour and confidante to the dowager Empress Maria Feodorovna . Many of the main characters ... (Wikipedia)

  28. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World

    by Haruki Murakami
    A surreal exploration of two separate yet interwoven realities.

    The story is split between parallel narratives. The odd-numbered chapters take place in the 'Hard-Boiled Wonderland', although the phrase is not used anywhere in the text, only in page headers. The ... (Wikipedia)

  29. Neuromancer

    by William Gibson
    A hacker's journey through a dystopian cyberpunk world, searching for a way to survive.

    Henry Dorsett Case is a low-level hustler in the dystopian underworld of Chiba City , Japan. Once a talented computer hacker , Case was caught stealing from his employer. As punishment for his theft, ... (Wikipedia)

  30. The New York Trilogy

    by Paul Auster
    A series of interconnected stories exploring the hidden mysteries of New York City.

    A 2006 reissue by Penguin Books is fronted by new pulp magazine -style covers by comic book illustrator Art Spiegelman . The first story, City of Glass , features an author of detective fiction who ... (Wikipedia)