Catch-22 by Joseph Heller

A darkly comic masterpiece of war and madness, Joseph Heller’s Catch-22 captures the absurdity of bureaucracy and the chaos of survival. Set in World War II, it follows Yossarian, a U.S. bombardier trapped in an endless loop of contradictory military logic — where the only way to escape combat is to be insane, yet proving one’s sanity makes escape impossible. Wildly inventive, sharp, and deeply human, this novel remains one of the greatest antiwar satires ever written.